Tatyana McFadden is having a busy week.
This weekend in Indianapolis, she will try to qualify in four events — the 100-, 400-, 800- and 1,500-meter races — for this summer's Paralympic Games in London. She already has qualified in the marathon and could become the first athlete in Olympic history to compete in the long race and the sprints.
On Wednesday, she will try to win The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Peachtree Road Race for the third consecutive time in the wheelchair division.
All these events, with the demands they place on body and mind, are difficult, she said.
But they are not nearly as challenging as being born with a disease that made her unwanted, trying to survive without much love, attention, medical care or food.
"I've already had the toughest battle of my life," she said.
McFadden, 23, was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, with spina bifida, a disease normally characterized by the spinal canal not closing before birth. She couldn't move her legs. Doctors didn't operate on her for 21 days. Her mother sent her to an orphanage.
It was a dirty place. Most meals consisted of cabbage and oatmeal. There were few friends and fewer adults to hold her or talk to her. There were no wheelchairs. She taught herself to walk by using her arms.
"It was lonely," she said.
But it honed her spirit and created a drive.
She was adopted six years later by Debbie McFadden, who met Tatyana on a business trip, and brought to the United States.
McFadden was anemic and underweight and doctors thought she might live only a few months.
Her mother began to use sports to help Tatyana regain strength. She began to improve. Soon, fueled by her drive, she began to excel.
She competed in everything from pingpong to swimming, but she loved wheelchair racing because she loves to go fast.
"I don't know where I would be if I didn't have racing," she said.
McFadden was the youngest competitor on the U.S. team in the Athens Paralympics in 2004 when she was 15 years old. She won a silver medal in the 100-meter race and a bronze in the 200.
She won three more silver medals in Beijing in 2008 in the 200, 400 and 800 and a bronze in the 4x100 relay. She has competed in national and world championships since, racking up win after win.
Before London, she has a few more races to win, starting Saturday in Indianapolis. She said the toughest event will be the 1,500 because the field is stacked. Only the top three finishers will advance in each of the races. She holds the U.S. records in the 100, 400, 800 and 1,500 in her class.
To prepare, McFadden has gone through two-a-day workouts most of the summer with the coach of her wheelchair track and field team at the University of Illinois.
She said she is tired but looks forward to the challenge of possibly competing in as many as nine races, including heats and finals, in the Summer Games.
"I can't believe it's here. London is just this summer," she said. "I've woken up four years wondering when it's going to be here."
She could have skipped the Peachtree Road Race to rest or train for London, but she said there was no chance that would happen.
"I love doing the Peachtree, the whole community comes out there for you," she said.
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