American Tatyana McFadden confirmed her reputation as one of the world’s greatest athletes, winning brilliantly on the road and the track, and even adding success on snow at the Winter Paralympics.
She had made history in 2013 by becoming the first wheelchair athlete to complete the classic marathon Grand Slam, winning in Boston, Chicago, London and New York, and the 25-year-old amazed the sporting world again in 2014 by repeating the feat for the second straight year. On the track in Indianapolis in June, she also broke the T54 world records in the 1,500 and 5,000 metres. Earlier in the year, she had shown her versatility by winning a Winter Paralympics silver medal in the 1km cross-country sprint.
Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, with spina bifida, McFadden spent six years in an orphanage, where she had to walk on her hands as there were no funds for a wheelchair, before being adopted and taken to the United States. In one of the most remarkable moments of the Winter Paralympics in Sochi, the 11-time medallist met her birth mother for the first time.
