C Tolle Run

Carrie interviews 17-time Paralympic medalist Tatyana McFadden! Tatyana discusses her advocacy work, bringing people together through the sport, and her career as a Child Life Specialist. Show notes for this episode can be found at ctollerun.com. Tatyana McFadden There are very few athletes in history who have come from so little to accomplish so much. Born with a hole in her spine caused by spina bifida, Tatyana McFadden spent the first six years of her life in a Russian orphanage with virtually nothing, not even a wheelchair. Paralyzed from the waist down, and with no other way to move, she learned to walk on her hands simply to keep up with the other children. Little did she know that the powerful arms and hands she began to develop as a small child would someday carry her around the globe as one of the world’s greatest athletes.  In 1994, Deborah McFadden, then Commissioner of Disabilities for the U.S. Department of Health, came upon Tatyana while visiting her orphanage on an otherwise routine business tr