Oksana Masters
Oksana Masters
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| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Oksana Alexandrovna Bondarchuk |
| Nationality | American |
| Born |
June 19, 1989 Khmelnytskyi, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union |
| Residence | Louisville, Kentucky |
| Height | 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m) (2012) |
| Weight | 122 lb (55 kg) (2012) |
| Website | Oksana Masters athlete bio |
| Sport | |
| Country | USA |
| Sport | Adaptive rowing, Para Cycling, Cross-country skiing, Biathlon |
| Event(s) | Mixed Sculls |
| Team | U.S. Paralympic |
| Partner | Rob Jones |
| Coached by | Justin Lednar, Bob Hurley, Roger Payne, Brad Alan Lewis |
| Achievements and titles | |
| Paralympic finals | 2012 Summer Paralympics: Trunk and arms mixed double sculls – Bronze, 2014 Winter Paralympics: Nordic Ski Cross Country - Silver & Bronze and Biathlon, 2016 Summer Paralympics: Cycling |
| Updated on March 09, 2014. | |
Oksana Masters (born June 19, 1989) is a Ukrainian-born American Paralympic rower and cross-country skier from Louisville, Kentucky. At the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, she won the first ever United States medal in trunk and arms mixed double sculls. She was named to the U.S. Nordic skiing team for the 2014 Winter Paralympics.
Oksana was born with several radiation-induced birth defects, including tibial hemimelia (resulting in different leg lengths), missing weight-bearing shinbones in her calves, webbed fingers with no thumbs, and six toes on each foot. She was abandoned by her birth parents at a Ukrainian orphanage where she lived until age 7. After she turned 7, Oksana was adopted by Gay Masters, an unmarried American speech therapy professor with no children of her own.
After moving to the United States in 1997, both of Oksana's legs were eventually amputated above the knee—her left leg at age eight and her right leg at age 13—as they became increasingly painful and unable to support her weight. Oksana also had surgery to modify her innermost fingers on each hand so they could function as thumbs.
When she arrived in the U.S., her mother was a professor at the University at Buffalo; she moved to Louisville, Kentucky in 2001 when her mother took a faculty position at the University of Louisville, and graduated from the city's Atherton High School in 2008.
Masters began adaptive rowing in 2002 at age 13, shortly before her right leg was amputated. She continued afterward and began adaptive rowing competitively. In 2010 she competed at the CRASH-B Sprints, setting a world record in the process. She was also the first adaptive sculler to compete in the Indianapolis Rowing Club "Head of the Eagle" regatta, winning the women's open singles event in the process.
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