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Fridays are awesome. I`m Carl Azuz. Welcome to the week`s last edition of CNN STUDENT
NEWS.
The Winter Olympics are over for another four years. But the Paralympics start today in
Sochi, Russia. They`ll run for the next nine days. Just like the February games we saw,
this is an international competition. It`s for physically disabled athletes. It will
include five sports from skiing and biathlon to hockey and curling, and it will feature
almost 700 athletes from 47 countries. All of them are exceptional. They are Olympians.
And one from the U.S. will have competed in both the summer and winter games.
Overcoming obstacles is nothing new for Tatiana McFadden. She was born with spina bifida.
That`s a birth defect that prevents the spinal court from properly closing while the baby
is still in the womb. As an unwanted disabled child in St. Petersburg, Russia, Tatiana was
immediately sent to an orphanage after her surgery.
I didn`t have a wheelchair, so my legs were atrophied behind my back, and I walked around
on my hands all the time.
Six years later, a chance visit by an American to the orphanage changed her life.
I immediately knew that she was my mom.
Adoption gave Tatyana an instant family. Her mom pushed Tatyana to participate in sports.
Getting involved with sports, you know, saved my life. I wrote down my goals and I said
I really want to be a Paralympic athlete and (INAUDIBLE)
At 15 year old, became the youngest member of the USA track and field theme. At the Athens
Paralympic Games. McFadden won four more medals in Beijing. And in London, she finally won
gold. In 2013, McFadden won the Grand Slam title for marathon wheelchair racing, and
then traded her wheelchair for a sitski.
Now, McFadden is back in Russia where she`s competing in the Sochi Paralympic cross country
Nordic skiing event. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN reporting.