NYRR Media Center

Tatyana McFadden’s extraordinary career has spanned over two decades—she is a seven-time Paralympian, 22-time Paralympic medalist, 20-time world championships medalist, and has won 24 Abbott World Marathon Majors races. With 22 medals, she is the most decorated track and field athlete in Olympic and Paralympic history. In her career, she has won five New York City Marathons, including four consecutively. In 2015, she lowered the event record by seven minutes and 20 seconds with a time of 1:43:04, a record that stood for seven years.

Her 24th Abbott World Marathon Majors win came in 2021 at the Chicago Marathon, giving her more majors wins than any other female wheelchair athlete. She won her second career United Airlines NYC Half in 2019 before finishing as runner-up at the TCS New York City Marathon that fall, and again in 2021 and 2024.

Despite having to miss the Boston and London marathons in 2017 due to blood clots, McFadden won four golds that year at the World Para Athletics Championships. She had a six-medal performance at the Rio 2016 Paralympics – including gold medals in the 400-, 800-, 1500-, and 5000-meter events – the most medals by a U.S. track and field athlete at a Paralympics since 1992. She flew straight from Rio to New York to lead an NYRR Youth Wheelchair Racing Clinic at Manhattan School for Children, where she donated a racing chair to NYRR’s Youth Wheelchair Training program. At the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, she won a gold, silver, and bronze medal. In 2022, she won three more world championship medals. At the Paris 2024 Paralympics, she won a silver and bronze in the 100 meters and mixed 4x100 meter relay.

Born with spina bifida and left at a Russian orphanage as a baby, McFadden was adopted by an American family who introduced her to sports. Her family also helped overturn federal laws that prohibited wheelchair racers and able-bodied runners from competing alongside one another at the high school level in the United States. In 2020, she co-produced and starred in the Netflix documentary "Rising Phoenix."