Tatyana McFadden is not supposed to be here.
She is not supposed to be one of the world's most decorated wheelchair racers. Nor the youngest-ever member of the U.S. Paralympic track and field team. Nor a multi-time medalist at the world championships and winner of three major marathons.
McFadden isn't even supposed to be alive.
But McFadden isn't big on letting perceived obstacles define her destiny. Paralyzed from the waist down after being born with spina bifida and abandoned as an infant at a Russian orphanage, McFadden taught herself to walk around on her hands. There was no access to a wheelchair. In 1994, at the age of 6, she charmed an unsuspecting American visitor, who eventually adopted her. But despite a new start and a new life, there were still struggles to face.
A few years later, McFadden was refused the right to compete on her high school track team alongside her able-bodied peers. Undeterred, she successfully lobbied for a law requiring public schools to provide opportunities for disabled students to participate in sports. Next on her list: conquering the marathon.
At 20, she entered the 2009 Chicago Marathon, her first foray at the 26.2-mile distance, just so she could get in a long-distance training ride. She ended up winning the race, and won her second title in Chicago last month. Tatyana was equally successful at the 2010 ING New York City Marathon, and is primed to repeat that feat this Sunday at the 42nd running of the Big Apple's grandest athletic event. She'll face a strong international contingent of other top wheelchair racers, including training partner and 2006 New York City Marathon champ Amanda McGrory, five-time Boston Marathon winner Wakako Tsuchida of Japan, and five-time New York City Marathon champion Edith Wolf-Hunkeler of Switzerland.
“For the first six years of my life, I didn't even know what sports were. I was just hoping for a family. I just wanted to live.
” -- Tatyana McFadden
Clearly, McFadden is talented. Her versatility -- she races every distance, from 100 meters on the track up to the marathon -- is practically unrivaled in the sport. But those who know her say it's much more than athletic prowess that's brought her so far, so fast. McFadden, in a word, is a survivor.
"I didn't think she'd live more than a couple of years," recalls Tatyana's adoptive mother, Debbie McFadden, who, at the time of her serendipitous visit to that St. Petersburg orphanage, was a commissioner for disabilities with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. "She was so sick and so weak. Everything that happened in the early part of her life should have killed her. The specialists I brought her to told me there was no medical reason why she survived. But Tatyana just grabs hold of life and hangs on."
Seeing sports as a way to keep the fragile little girl healthy, Debbie signed her daughter up for swimming and gymnastics lessons. She thrived in the competitive environment and eventually got into basketball and, finally, wheelchair racing with the Bennett Blazers, an adaptive athletics program based near her home in Baltimore. By the time she reached her teens, McFadden was dominating a sport where female athletes tend to peak in their 30s. In 2004, at just 15, she not only qualified for the Athens Paralympic Games, but medaled in the 100 meters (silver) and 200 (bronze). Four years later, in Beijing, she collected four more medals, winning silver in the 200, 400 and 800 meters, plus bronze in the 4x100-meter relay, rewriting the American record books along the way.
"I definitely didn't see that coming," McFadden said of her success on the track. "Of course, I loved watching the Olympics as a kid, but I never thought I'd actually get to be there. For the first six years of my life, I didn't even know what sports were. I was just hoping for a family. I just wanted to live."
Today, the ginger-haired 22-year-old with a broad, dimple-framed smile is doing plenty of living. In fact, she's no different from your typical college junior -- save for the chiseled upper body and crazy-fast speed in a wheelchair. McFadden is majoring in human development and family studies at the University of Illinois, where she's part of a contingent of adapted athletes coached by wheelchair racing veteran Adam Bleakney. Tatyana's win in Chicago last month qualified her for the London Paralympic Games in the marathon, and she's now focusing on her goal of competing -- and winning gold -- in up to four more sprint events on the track.
Bleakney is confident that McFadden will earn those golds in London, noting that Tatyana's technical skills in the wheelchair put her in a class of her own.
"To make the racing chair move forward, it takes an incredible amount of neuromuscular coordination and skill that athletes learn and master over years and years of training," Bleakney said. "Tatyana is incredibly sound technically and this translates into her being able to generate a lot of speed and to do so very efficiently [in sprints]. She can also hold a high percentage of speed over extended periods of time, which is key in marathons. So it's not unreasonable that a very gifted and driven athlete such as Tatyana could be successful in both."
McFadden may be on a meteoric rise in wheelchair racing, but she hasn't forgotten her roots. After racing the London Marathon last spring, she asked her mom if they could add a trip to Russia to their itinerary. Tatyana wanted to visit the orphanage where she walked the halls on her hands and fantasized about life beyond those walls.
There, as the children crawled around her wheelchair and climbed into her lap, McFadden showed them her gold medal from the New York City Marathon. "This," she told the wide-eyed children, "is what you get when you work really, really hard at something. It's a symbol for something you achieve."
McFadden then handed the medal to the orphanage's director, thanking her for nurturing her as an infant, proclaiming the woman a champion in her own right for selflessly caring for so many children. On their way out, Debbie, awestruck by her daughter's generosity, asked McFadden if she was sure she wanted to part with such a prized possession.
McFadden shrugged. "Don't worry, Mom," she said nonchalantly. "There will be other opportunities to win it again."
And she'll have a chance to do just that on Sunday.
