Biography
Tatyana McFadden was born in the Russian city of St. Petersburg with spina bifida, a congenital disorder that paralyzed from the waist down. Her birth mother abandoned her in an orphanage that was too poor to afford a wheelchair for her, so she walked on her hands for the first six years of her life. The doctors told her she was so sick that she had very little time to live. There she was seen by Deborah McFadden, who was visiting Russia as a commissioner of disabilities for the US Health Department. She adopted her as a single mother, and took her to a new life in Baltimore.
To strengthen her, McFadden took up a variety of sports: first swimming, then gymnastics, wheelchair basketball, sled hockey, and track and field. McFadden is currently attending the University of Illinois studying for a degree in Human Development and Family Studies, and is on the University of Illinois Wheelchair Basketball team. But it is in racing that she has made her fame.
Read more about this topic: Tatyana Mc Fadden
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