When Oksana Masters is having a bad day, her mother brings her sunflowers. Their petals contain layers of meaning for Masters, an athlete who was born in Ukraine; there, the flowers are a symbol of peace and pride. A vase of them overflows behind her as she speaks, via video call, from her home in Champaign, Illinois, a city south of Chicago.

Masters is 33. She was born in 1989 with severe disabilities, including missing shinbones and thumbs, which are thought to have been caused by her mother’s exposure to radiation after the Chernobyl disaster three years earlier. Her birth parents immediately handed her to the state, unwittingly dooming her to an early childhood of extreme cruelty and abuse.

At the last of three orphanages Masters was sent to, an upstairs room operated as a brothel for paedophiles. She was raped almost daily between the ages of five and seven. Beaten and cut for perceived transgressions, her medical needs were ignored and she became dangerously malnourished.

Gay Masters, an American academic, adopted her when she was seven. Oksana arrived in the United States so underweight that doctors diagnosed her with FTT – the medical term ‘failure to thrive’.

Twenty-six years later, after numerous operations, including the amputation of both legs, she has become one of the world’s most successful athletes.

One of the memories most difficult to put to paper was that of Laney, her best friend in the orphanage and – until Gay came along – the only person who used to hug her or hold her hand. Masters’ love of sunflowers started with Laney too; the girls dreamed of walking through them together. One night in the orphanage, Masters encouraged Laney to join her in a search for bread. She remembers slipping, attracting the attention of staff. Laney pushed her out of harm’s way under a table, only to be caught and beaten so badly that she died.

Masters has only recently felt able to express the grief and guilt she has carried for decades. ‘My mom knows that sunflowers to me aren’t just flowers,’ she says, her voice cracking. ‘They’re how I see Laney and all the good things she meant, which almost makes me forget that anything bad happened.’

This was certainly true of Masters. After winning a silver medal in a cross-country skiing event at the Sochi Paralympic Winter Games in 2014, she went on to compete again in 2018, in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Major brands, including Nike and Visa, were competing to sponsor her. She has also found the love of her life in Aaron Pike, a dashing champion wheelchair racer and cross-country skier. The couple live together in Champaign and have talked about adopting a child of their own.

But life has not been without further challenges: three weeks before the Games in Pyeongchang, Masters broke her elbow after falling on a patch of ice. Competing risked permanent damage, but with major strapping, she made the starting line.

When the pain became almost too much to bear in the closing stages of the dramatic 1.1km cross-country sprint event, Masters remembers feeling a nudge from behind, yet turning around to find nobody there.

Slumping to the ground after winning her first Paralympic gold medal, the pain gave way to a crazed reel of images, mainly featuring the two most important people in her early life. ‘It started with my memories of Ukraine, and meeting Mom,’ she says, her voice cracking before she glances at the sunflowers.

‘And there was Laney, who I know was the one pushing me to the finish line.’