From Ukraine to Champion: Gold Medalist Oksana Masters' Journey to Sports

and then you start finding Sports and your mom encourages you a lot to try to like exercise and be active and like move your body and have control of your body yeah and what were those first sports I know rowing was probably one of the early ones you got into that you were like oh this is it did it snap immediately in your brain you're like this is what I need to be doing not in that way not in like oh my gosh like I need to be doing this it was oh my gosh I belong here this is this is where like my home is so I felt it when my mom kned down my bed and then I felt it again when I took my leg off and pushed away from the dock and it was just me in the boat and I could literally the ores and controlling the ores I felt it underneath the boat in the water and it's that not being in control of things but I felt like finally like I was in the right place because I went from went from Ukraine to Buffalo New York moved to Kentucky had my legs AMP one leg amputated in Buffalo moved to Kentucky and was readjusting to new friends knew everything yeah can you can you explain that briefly just why you had why you had to have one of the legs amputated so my mom knew I was going to have my legs the one amputated short one my little baby leg that we had like a whole little ceremony for now you nap with yeah my nap light my pillow and um and I could like pull my cuz the Cur the toes are curled I would just pull my hair behind my ear with it's weird like I like a grudge look at The Grudge and that's who I was but um she knew that one was going to have to be amputated instantly and she waited a year before that one was amputated so I could learn the language so she's not just taking me from Ukraine where we don't speak each other language and take my body parts she thought that wasn't the right thing to do makes sense and yeah she's a pretty she's a pretty good mom mom makes things are kicking in guess instantly and it's because of the weightbearing bone that one was obvious the right one they said they could keep they'll say it won't be an issue it'll just hurt but what was happening as I was getting old like I was able to walk and I taught myself how to walk because I was so malnourished I was 35 lbs and I was almost turning eight and I was 34 in tall so the body weight wasn't affecting those bones and that's why partially I was able to do that as I grew within the first six inches I grew eight 6 months I grew 8 in when I came to America and my mom says it's food but then also just affection and that actually she said stimulates growth hormones as a child so when you're hugged and when you cry and you're like well yeah so when you when your mom or your dad hugs you if you're crying it releases the things in your body and it like promotes that in that early stages of a childhood crazy I've never heard that before yeah there are short people right now listen to this that are so angry said that what Mom did you just not love me enough I know they they're trying to fight their parents they're trying to swing on them I knew it I knew it oh that's crazy but and so I grew that fast but because of that speed of in becoming healthy I was getting actually weight and it came to a point where I couldn't the weightbearing bone was not a weightbearing bone right cuz now you're getting to a normal healthy weight and your legs are not normal Health giving out and that was a whole issue because they moved to Kentucky and they said and I tried rowing and I fell in love with it and it was my place I finally felt like I belong somewhere