11 Women Athletes to Watch at the 2022 Paralympics

Sport: cross-country skiing and biathlon

Country: USA

Follow Oksana Masters on TikTok: @oksanamasters

Follow Oksana Masters on Instagram: @oksanamasters

Oksana Masters is a 10-time Paralympic medalist and has competed in the Summer and Winter Paralympics in rowing, cycling, cross-country skiing, and biathlon. She made her Paralympic debut with a bronze in rowing, then switched to winter sitting sports and hand-cycling events for summer. Most recently, she won two gold medals at the Tokyo Paralympics (time trial and road race).

Masters, who was adopted from Ukraine when she was 7, tweeted, "It's the stars and strips 🇺🇸 that keeps my Ukrainian🇺🇦 heart beating. I've always been proud of where I come from. And I can't wait to race for the two countries that make me whole."

Sport: cross-country skiing and biathlon

Country: USA

Follow Dani Aravich on Instagram: @theonearmdan

Dani Aravich made her Paralympic debut this past summer in track and field — she finished fifth in a preliminary T47 400m heat — and will now make her Winter Paralympic debut. she calls it "the double debut" in her Instagram bio. Aravich told NBC Olympics that she looks up to Masters. "She has competed in four different sports and grinded away. I am hoping to make the leap to a new summer sport in the future, so Oksana is a great role model to have."

Sport: wheelchair curling

Country: USA

Oyuna Uranchimeg, who is originally from Mongolia, made her world-championship debut in 2021. She will be Team USA's lead on the wheelchair-curling team (note: the lead delivers the first two stones). She began curling in 2016 and will compete in her very first Paralympics in Beijing. She told a journalism student at the University of St. Thomas, where she is employed, that she cried upon finding out she made the Paralympic wheelchair-curling team.

Sport: alpine skiing

Country: France

Follow Marie Bochet on Instagram: @mariebochet

Maria Bochet will be one to watch in alpine skiing. She's an eight-time Paralympic gold medalist, having won four golds in both Sochi 2014 (downhill standing, super-G standing, giant-slalom standing, and super-combined standing) and Pyeongchang 2018 (downhill standing, super-G standing, giant-slalom standing, and slalom standing).

Sport: cross-country skiing

Country: Canada

Follow Natalie Wilkie on Instagram: @natalie_wilkie_

Natalie Wilkie won a gold (7.5km classic standing), silver (4 x 2.5km mixed relay), and bronze medal (1.5km sprint classic standing) in skiing events at Pyeongchang 2018 in her debut Paralympic Games. "For the longest time after PyeongChang, I didn't realise how well I had actually done and what an amazing experience it was," she told Canada's Paralympic.ca. "I thought at best Pyeongchang would be a preparation for Beijing 2022. I got there and my plan was just to do my best with no expectations."

Sport: alpine skiing

Country: Slovakia

According to her Paralympic.org athlete profile, Henrieta Farkašová was the most decorated Winter Paralympian at Pyeongchang 2018, with four gold medals and one silver medal (her guide at those Games was Natalia Subrtova). Farkašová has 12 medals total across three Paralympics in the vision-impaired classification of alpine skiing.

Sport: snowboarding

Country: Netherlands

Follow Lisa Bunschoten on Instagram: @lisabunschoten

Lisa Bunschoten won SB-LL2 banked slalom bronze and SB-LL2 snowboard-cross silver at the 2018 Pyeongchang Paralympics. She and her boyfriend, Chris Vos, who is also a snowboarder for the Netherlands, were selected as opening ceremony flag bearers for Beijing 2022.

"I'm feeling good and ready to go," Bunschoten told Paralympic.org. "I am really looking forward to racing in Beijing. Of course I'm going for the highest [gold medal], but most of all, I want to give it everything I have and put down the best runs I can."

Sport: alpine skiing

Country: USA

Follow Danelle Umstead on Instagram: @danelleumstead

Danelle Umstead, who competes alongside her guide and husband in the vision-impaired classification of alpine-skiing events, has three Paralympic bronze medals. This is Umstead's fourth Paralympic Games to date, and she was chosen to be one of the opening ceremony flag bearers for Team USA.

Sport: wheelchair curling

Country: Sweden

Every wheelchair-curling team is required to have at least one woman player in Beijing 2022. This is Kristina Ulander's third Paralympics after she finished seventh and tenth with her teams at the 2014 and 2018 Paralympics, respectively. She won team world championship silver last year.

Sport: cross-country skiing

Country: Austria

Follow Carina Edlinger on Instagram: @carina_edlinger

Carina Edlinger, who competes in the vision-impaired classification of cross-country skiing, won 7.5km classic bronze in Pyeongchang 2018. She comes to these Beijing Paralympics with guide, Daniel Bauer. Paralympic.org calls Edlinger the "biggest medal contender in the women's vision impaired event."

Sport: biathlon, cross-country skiing

Country: USA

Follow Kendall Gretsch on Instagram: @k.gretsch

Kendall Gretsch won PTWC triathlon gold at the Tokyo Paralympics this past summer, adding to her two gold medals from the Pyeongchang Winter Paralympics in 2018 (biathlon 6km sitting and cross-country 12km sitting). She was the first woman athlete from Team USA to win an Olympic or Paralympic biathlon title, NBC Sports reported. Now, she'll be competing in the biathlon and cross-country skiing events in Beijing 2022.

Gretsch had six months or so to transition to winter-sport mode after the Tokyo Games, and she said during a Team USA media summit last fall that she tried to take some time off between the two seasons to recharge: "There's a lot of mental energy that goes towards preparing for a game, so I think that was the most important part for me, is really making sure that I took a mental break and a physical break between Tokyo and then leading up into Beijing."