Tatyana Macfadden: Russian American won the New York marathon in a wheelchair again

Tatiana McFadden, an American of Russian origin, won the fourth wheelchair marathon in a row that took place on November 6 in New York.

Prior to that, the 27-year-old woman won victories in similar competitions in London, Boston and Chicago. In total, she won the already 17 marathons, writes NBC New York.

Tatyana is a multiple Paralympic medalist in women's short- and middle-distance wheelchair racing in the international Paralympic functional class of athletes T54, which includes participants with at least partially preserved function of the upper half of the body and limbs, it says on the official website McFadden.

She was born in 1989 in Leningrad (USSR, now Russia) with numerous defects of the lower half of the body (spinal hernia, paraplegia and problems with the functioning of the pelvic organs), due to which her mother abandoned her immediately after birth. The girl ended up in a city orphanage, and due to lack of funds for a wheelchair, she even had to learn to walk on her hands.

At the start of 90, Baby House began a collaboration with Deborah McFadden, who was involved in the adoption of children around the world.

Deborah did not intend to adopt anyone, let alone an 6-year-old paralyzed child who barely survived early childhood, contrary to the expectations of doctors, but, according to her, returning to the hotel after visiting the House of Child could not forget Tatyana. The adoption of Tatiana by Deborah McFadden took place in 1994, the adoptive daughters from Albania, Hanna and Ruti, are brought up in the family of Deborah.

“When I adopted Tatiana, I really didn’t want her to spend all her time in hospitals,” recalls Deborah McFadden. “I didn’t want her to be perceived as a helpless person.” I found a team where the guys played wheelchair basketball and did swimming. Especially in swimming - you don’t need to know the language, it’s not so important whether your legs move. And then I bought her a nice stroller for sports and a basketball. She always wanted to do everything herself. Therefore, I can even say this in Russian, because I heard it so many times from Tanya: “I myself,” her American mother told the TV channel Currently,.

In 15 years, Tatyana performed at her first Paralympic Games - in Athens. At the end of the summer of the same year, she entered Atolton High School in the USA.

Tatyana wanted to participate in the school athletics team, but on the eve of the first training session she was refused admission from the coach. After the complaint of the mother she was allowed to do the 400-meter in a wheelchair, but separately from everyone - after the other participants, which was humiliating for her: she wanted to be considered a full participant of the competition and a contender for victory in them, and not an object of sympathy because of her disability .

Deborah and Tatiana filed a lawsuit against discrimination against the district education administration. And in the 2006 year, by the decision of the judge, Tatyana got the opportunity to compete, and the following year a final agreement was reached with the school. Then the state of Maryland, and then more than a dozen other states, decided to expand the rights of disabled people to participate in school sports. Due to the legal success of Tatiana’s case, another adoptive daughter of Deborah Hannah got into the school athletics team, and she moves using a prosthesis.

The sports scholarship allowed Tatiana to become a student at the University of Illinois and take part in the 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 Paralympic Games, for which she earned 16 medals.

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