Ukrainian-American Paralympic rower and cross-country skier Oksana Masters secured her second gold medal at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games on Thursday 5 September defending her title in the women’s road race H5.

Having also emerged victorious from para cycling’s H4-5 individual time trial on Wednesday 4 September, the 35-year-old repeated her feat of securing golds in the same events at Tokyo 2020.

It means Masters now has 19 Paralympic medals from both summer and winter Games in the shape of 9 golds, 7 silvers, and 3 bronzes. 

Masters beat out competition from China's Sun Bianbian and Ana Maria Vitelaru of Italy to claim gold in the Women's Road Race H5 with her time of 1:52:14 just 11 seconds better than Bianbian and 13 seconds better than Vitelaru.

The multi-sport specialist then clocked 23 minutes and 45.20 seconds in the H4-5 Individual Time Trial to finish 6.24 seconds ahead of Chantal Haenen of the Netherlands and a huge 1 minute, 27.87 seconds ahead of Bianbian.

“This is definitely one of my favourites. I mean, defending time trial Paralympic champion in cycling. I never saw this coming at all. In Paris, too. This is just the home of cycling, the most picturesque place to do this," said Masters.

Born near Chernobyl, Ukraine in 1989, Masters had various birth defects believed to be the consequences of radiation from the aftermath of the infamous Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster.

Her birth parents abandoned her and she spent the first seven years of her life in traumatic circumstances in several orphanages. She was then adopted by American professor Gay Masters at the age of seven and moved to the United States in 1997 where she had both of her legs amputated above the knee.

Masters will attempt to complete a trio of golds on Saturday when she competes in the mixed H1-5 team Relay and bids to reach an incredible 20 Paralympic medals.