‘It’s So Much Money.’ Paralympic Athletes Just Scored a Major Victory for Equal Pay

When Oksana Masters heard last week that the U.S. Olympic Committee voted to start giving Paralympians the same medal bonuses as Olympians, she burst into tears. An eight-time Paralympic medalist who was once so poor during training for the 2014 Games that she slept in her car, she was shocked by the news.

“I can’t really believe it actually happened,” Masters, a skier, cyclist and rower, tells MONEY. “We all put in the same dedication, the same type of sacrifices.