Oksana Masters is a 17-time Paralympic medalist in both summer and winter sports. Born in Ukraine, Masters spent many of her early years between orphanages before being adopted in the U.S. In Sports As Therapy: Athlete Voices With Oksana Masters, Oksana speaks about her upbringing, her sporting accomplishments and how she uses sports as one of her most effective therapies. Oksana also shares below how Athlete Health and Wellness Resources from the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee have shaped her as an athlete and what it means to have the support of donors across the country.
"I really got into sport really in 2011. 2008 is where I actually learned about the Paralympic games, and I set my whole sights to make it, and I did not make those games, but it was in that moment that I realized how bad I really wanted to make it and represent Team USA and moved away from home and committed everything."
"I don't really think about it as the labels that most decorated Winter Paralympian or Paralympian. I love being a student of something and chasing that perfection."
"I'm really chasing that perfect race regardless of that result. I just want to cross that finish line and not regret one single action I did in that race, in that course. It just so happens I've had incredible team around me that have helped me bring home medals for Team USA."
"I was born in Ukraine and I moved around three different orphanages, and the last specific orphanage was the worst one, and the one I was really lucky to get out of, and my mom literally saved my life."
"So there's like sport saved my life and my mom saved my life. Those were two big things for me when I was 13, I suppressed a lot of things that I experienced in Ukraine, in the orphanages. I didn't know how to verbalize and how to say it. I was afraid to say it because it just makes everything more real."
"The minute I got on that boat and pushed away from the dock, that's how I processed everything. I didn't have to talk and I just pulled on the oars and released all the anger."
"For me, I say a lot of times it was my way to scream without physically screaming out loud to the world."
"A lot of times I'm going back to those darker moments to process everything, and it helps me regain power in those moments of my life, I did not have power of my body and myself."
"To this day, sports for me, it's therapy."
"I'll probably doing it as a master, but I'll always be active because that's the power of sports. There's so much, it can heal your body physically, but also emotionally and mentally."
"I got a message from a mom on social media and her daughter who was 13, had one prosthetic leg. She saw my story and saw a picture with me showing my legs, which is something that took me literally all of 28 years of my life to finally get comfortable with and not hide the things that made me, me. She saw that story, and the next day she chose to go to school in a dress showing her leg."
"I think that is something that for me, it's those moments off the field and you just being authentically you. Not knowing how it's going to impact someone, and help them by being me and being seen and not hide the things that I struggle to love about myself sometimes. So I think that, and just helping more girls getting into more sports and staying in sports too.