PARIS (AP) — Oksana Masters has claimed another gold medal at the Paralympic Games by defending her title in para cycling’s H4-5 individual time trial.
The American multi-sport specialist clocked 23 minutes, 45.20 seconds on Wednesday to finish 6.24 seconds ahead of Chantal Haenen of the Netherlands and a whopping 1 minute, 27.87 seconds ahead of China’s Sun Bianbian.
It takes Masters’ career total to eight golds — and 18 medals overall — from both summer and winter Games.
Masters will also compete in a H5 road race as defending champion on Thursday, before she wraps up her Paris Games in the mixed H1-5 team relay on Saturday.
Masters was born in 1989 near Chernobyl in Ukraine, the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident, and has birth defects believed to be from the aftermath of the disaster.
She was adopted by an American mother when she was a child. She had her left leg amputated near the knee at 9 and the right one at the same spot five years later.
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