Kentuckian Oksana Masters Carries Torch for Team USA ahead of Paralympic Games

The international sports community is turning its eyes back to Paris and one of the brightest stars calls Kentucky home. Oksana Masters, a 17-time medalist, carried the torch during the opening ceremonies of the 2024 Paralympic Games.

Masters has been on big stages before, but this was different. “I have goosebumps underneath this blazer of Team USA,” she said just before her monumental moment.

“The unity and the power when we all come together and walking in as one, there’s something so powerful with it. The visibility of it, knowing everything we’ve put into being here, it’s going to be incredible.”

Masters has taken an incredible journey to reach this point. Originally born in Ukraine, she suffered from multiple birth defects due to radiation poisoning. As she detailed in The Players’ Tribune ahead of the 2020 Paralympic Games, she ultimately had to have both legs amputated above the knee.

Hardship didn’t end there. She spent 7.5 years in the orphanage system before ultimately making her way to her new Kentucky home of Louisville. Masters was adopted by Dr. Gay Masters, a speech pathology professor at the University of Louisville. She attended Highland Middle and Atherton High School before blossoming into a star on the international stage.

Here’s the crazy thing: Masters has won big in the summer AND winter Paralympic Games. She has won 17 medals in three different sports, Nordic skiing, rowing, and cycling. This year the Para cycler will compete in the handcycling category and will participate in the road race and time trial events on Sept. 4 and 5.

Kentucky was well-represented at the Paris Olympics. Now a Ukranian-American is on track to bring back to the Bluegrass more hardware from Paris in the 2024 Paralympic Games.

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