Against All Odds - Tatsiana Khvitsko

Learning to Fly

In just a few shorts months, this April 26th will mark the 30 year anniversary of the worst nuclear power plant catastrophe in world history. Fatal mistakes made during a reactor safety test at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Pripyat, Ukraine, caused steam explosions and fires to destroy a reactor core, releasing radiation into the air some 200 times greater than that released by both atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War 2. While Ukraine, Russia and other nearby countries have suffered gravely as a result of the disaster, Belarus, a small country just north of the accident site was littered with over 60% of the nuclear fallout, affecting an estimated 99% of the country’s land and every living thing that inhabited it. In the years to follow, the adverse health effects from the exposure to the radioactive fallout have been vast, however among the most tragic is the 250 % increase in congenital birth defects seen in children born since the disaster to parents who suffered from the effects of radiation.  

Born In August of 1990 in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, just 214 miles from Chernobyl, was a young girl named Tatsiana (Tanya) Khvitsko. Tanya’s parents had been living in Minsk at the time of the accident and like many other children born after the fallout, there were complications. Tanya was born as what is known as a congenital amputee; missing her right leg from below the hip, her left just below the knee, and missing some of her fingers on both hands.   As one can imagine, Tanya’s early years were difficult for her both physically and mentally. From dealing with the emotional challenges facing young children who see themselves as being different from others, to the physical challenges she faced not being able to walk or run or simply play as kids do, to not having the same use of her hands as other children, Tanya’s youth was full of adversities.

At the age of five, Tanya met doctors and representatives from an American organization called Project Restoration International, who provide physical, emotional and spiritual assistance to the citizens of Belarus affected by the disaster at Chernobyl. After spending her entire life walking on wooden prosthetics that severely limited her mobility, the doctors from Project Restoration finally got Tanya fitted with new, modern prosthetics that made it significantly easier and more comfortable to get around and partake in everyday activities just the same as the other children around her. For the next 12 years, Project Restoration brought Tanya to the United States every summer for two months to provide her with the medical treatment she needed and to fit hit with new prosthetics to accommodate her growth. Along with that, she spent her time having fun with her American family and enjoying a care free environment that allowed her to experience all the fun activities an American summer has to offer.

After years of visiting the United States every summer, In August of 2008, just one week before her 18th birthday, Tanya and her family permanently relocated to Kansas City, Kansas.   Becoming accustomed to an American way of life was easy for Tanya, but even at 18 years of age, she still dealt with daily confidence issues stemming from her insecurities with her physical appearance.   Unbeknownst to her, that would all change in just a few short years. In 2011 a woman from Tanya’s church who specialized in prosthetics surprised her with her very first running leg for her left leg and running blade for her right.   For the first time in her life, Tanya was able to run, and run she did!

When interviewing Tayna I asked her to try describing the feeling of running for the very first time at 21 years of age. She used words like freedom, empowerment and joy, but I couldn’t prepare myself for how taken aback I’d be when she said, “Since I don’t have feet and the sensation of them hitting the ground, the best way I can describe it, is that it felt like I was flying.”   21 years of physical and mental struggles, 21 years of prosthetics that often worked against her more times than for, and 21 years of never experiencing the wind pushing back in her face, and now, she was free.   After experiencing what it felt like to run for the first time, she never wanted that feeling to stop, so running became not just a part of her life, but a part of her.

Just two short months after running for the very first time, Tayna ran her first 5K, fourth months after that, her first half-marathon. As the only amputee running competitively in the Kansas City area, Tanya quickly became a star on the local running scene, inspiring just about everyone that saw her run to push themselves past the limits of what they had thought previously possible.   I think most would say that considering what she was up against, taking on the all the challenges of competitive running with prosthetic legs would be sufficient for Tanya to feel like she’s accomplished everything she’s capable of. Well, it wasn’t! After a few years of steadily improving her times as a competitive runner, Tayna was contacted by an adaptive Crossfit team comprised of amputees and athletes with other disabilities, creatively named “Some Assembly Required”. The team was preparing to compete in the 2015 Arnold Sports Festival Crossfit Games the first weekend in March and Tayna accepted the challenge with enthusiasm.

With just two months to prepare, Tanya entered a whole new world of physical challenges.   While her previous focus was simply running, Crossfit would require weight training, Olympic style lifting, and a variety of other physical skills that she had never considered honing.   After spending years perfecting her running form, she had to relearn how to balance on her prosthetics while doing events like deadlifting, tire flipping, and overhead pressing. She had special hooks that allowed her to hang onto bars in lifts where the grip requirements were too much for the way her hands had formed. On top of all that, she also had to learn special ways to position herself correctly so that the muscles she worked was stressed to the max within with the varying range of motion provided by each of her two different prosthetics. After two months of training three days a week, Tanya and Team “Some Assembly Required” made an impressive showing in a field comprised completely of otherwise able bodied athletes. Although the team didn’t place how they would’ve like, they inspired, motivated, and to anyone that saw them compete, the word “disability” hardly seemed a fitting word to describe anything about them!

With competitive running and Crossfit competitions now on her resume, Tayna still wanted to prove to herself and others that she was still capable of more, so after being contacted by a local trainer just about the same time she was competing in her first Crossfit competition, she decided to train for the figure division in a local bodybuilding and fitness competition, the NPC Muscle Mayhem Championships In St. Louis. Once again, a new challenge was on the horizon.   As with learning to run, and as with training for Crossfit, preparing for her figure show was going to be significantly different than anything she’d done in the past.   When asked what the biggest difference in training for her upcoming show versus what she’s done in the past was, the answer was simple; “The diet”.   While training for races and Crossfit competitions, Tanya was allowed to have a fair amount of freedom in her diet and to cater to her sweet tooth when she wanted. With her new regimen, foods like chicken, egg whites, brown rice and broccoli made up the majority of her daily meal plans. Along with a new diet came a new weight training style. While in the past her training focused on athletic performance, her main goal in training for her upcoming competition was to build muscle and work on creating a balanced, aesthetic physique. Her training jumped from three days a week for her Crossfit competition to five to six days a week, pushing her harder than she ever had been before.  

While admittedly nervous for her first show, Tayna handled it with the confidence of a seasoned vet and finished an impressive 8th place in a talented field of competitors. As she prepared to take the stage she was all smiles and had a feeling of excitement in once again taking on something new.   When asked about her first experience on a competitive stage, Tanya spoke of how part of the competition is getting on stage in a bikini, so she had no choice but to deal with all the body image issues I she had dealt with growing up. “In a bikini, there’s nothing to hide and it actually felt empowering. I was able to stand on the stage and say here’s the true me, here I am people.”

As far as what lays ahead for Tanya in 2016, she has once again aimed her sights high. In March she’ll be competing in the Crossfit competition again at the Arnold Classic Sports festival, in April she will be running a half marathon and in the fall she will be taking on another new challenge in competing in her first full marathon! While she’s unsure as to whether it will be this year or next, Tanya also plans on returning to figure competitions as just another way to challenger herself to be the best she can be.

Now if you’re having a bad day, a bad workout, or just plain feeling sorry for yourself, just read this final comment from Tanya, and then read it again. “Doing all these competitions gives me such a giant amount of respect for all these sports. They are all so different and each sport has taught me something new about myself. If I had a choice to have or not have legs, part of me does wish sometimes that I had legs and to know what its like to wear heels, to wear a dress or a bikini and not worry about people looking at my legs. However, if I had legs I don’t know that I’d be as thankful or appreciative as I am today for all I’ve been able to accomplish. I also don’t know that if I had legs that I’d be competitive as I am today or blessed with all the amazing opportunities I’ve had.   I do know one thing, my life has been full of ups and downs but I’ve come to realize that there’s always someone who’s had more downs.   When someone asks me why I do all these sports, I smile and tell them simply because I can. At the end of the day, if there’s one main goal I have its to have other amputees look at me and realize that if you want something in life, go for it because anything is possible”.

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