Oksana Masters, who was born in Ukraine with severe radiation damage from the Chernobyl disaster and was abandoned by her parents, has achieved great success in para sports.

Masters, who was adopted by an American as an eight-year-old, has 17 medals from the Paralympics, both from the summer and winter championships.

But now she misses the para-WC in skiing due to an injury to her left hand.

Masters had surgery in November but was forced into an unexpected second surgery now at the same time as the WC.

"As painful and difficult as it is to stand on the sidelines where I can't defend my WC titles, I'm looking forward to starting to work towards my comeback," she writes on Instagram.

"The loss, the pain, the sadness and the tears will help me on my journey back".

CLIP: Zebastian Modin disqualified in semi-final (January 24):

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Zebastian Modin disqualified in the semi-finals - Sweden has filed a protest