A biography for Oksana Mastershasn’t been written yet.
“My mom literally saved my life. I wasn't supposed to make it out of the orphanage.”
“The mind is really powerful.”
“I was a troublemaker.”
“Growing up in a very poor orphanage in Ukraine, there wasn't much food.”
“It's extremely important for my sit ski to be perfectly fit to me. If it's too big, and I shift around, the energy and strength I put into propelling myself forward will be lost. The right fit is everything in my sport.”
“I definitely did not like my body when I first started sports. I didn't like my body just in general as a teenager. Being a girl and a teenager with two prosthetic legs and two hands that were misshapen that had so much reconstructive surgery on them, I thought my world was over - put a zit on top of that, and then my life is completely over.”
“It was honestly like 'Annie.' One day I was alone in a cold, dark Eastern European orphanage, and then the next day I was in an enchanted, mystical land known as Walmart.”
“It's hard to understand the athlete's lifestyle. You literally eat, sleep, train. You go to training camps in the winter where there is no Internet, you can't make phone calls.”
“The realization that I'm never going to run again, the feeling through my hair when you run... you're still a kid. You still have so much life to live.”
“I've gotten a lot of people saying. 'That is awesome. You're so brave.' I hate when people say brave. I'm not brave. I'm just living my life. Why is that brave?”
“Just keep moving forward.”
“In 2012, I was invited to a ski event called the Hartford Ski Spectacular to learn how to sit-ski for the first time. I loved it, but it was not pretty - I was not good. I didn't know how to stop, so I kept throwing myself on the ground.”
“I can go days without eating if I don't think about food. Your mind, to protect itself, learns not to pay attention to that hunger feeling.”
“I'm just stupid and too headstrong.”
“Every single race that I get on the podium in biathlon, I'm shocked.”
“I was supposed to be adopted when I was five, but then my adoption was pushed back by two years.”
“I like to keep my hair and makeup routines easy and simple on race days.”