These are all questions we should be pondering as Tatyana McFadden readies for the start of Sunday’s TCS New York City Marathon.

Have we become so disconnected as a society that because greatness comes in the form of a wheelchair athlete we so choose not to celebrate or embrace the greatness because it might be difficult to relate to?

McFadden said that she has actually seen an improvement in her last decade competing on the Paralympic circuit, most of that recently.

“It just takes time. It takes education,” she said. “I have grown as a person and athlete so much since my very first Paralympics in 2004. They didn’t even know what Paralympics was, kind of like marathons. That has grown so much.

“So even being at the hotel this weekend, people started to recognize me. ‘Hey you’re Tatyana McFadden. You won here last year.’ That is really changing, and America is slowly changing in the way they perceive elite wheelchair racers. Hopefully, one day it will blossom.”

It is criminal that an athlete of McFadden’s stature must play this type of societal waiting game. Just look at her body of work the last two years.

She made her debut at the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013, winning in 1 hour, 45 minutes, 25 seconds, nearly a minute and a half clear of her closest competitor, Switzerland’s Sandra Graf.

Six days later, McFadden won the London Marathon in a course-record 1:46:02, squeaking out a two-second victory over University of Illinois teammate Amanda McGrory.

Later that October, McFadden continued her assault on the record books, taking down the course record in Chicago in 1:42:35 in a thrilling finish that saw world champion Manuela Schaer of Switzerland (1:42:38) and McGrory (1:42:55) challenging to the end.

Last November, McFadden dominated the New York City Marathon, taking the lead on the Verrazano Bridge and building as large of a three-minute lead before winning in 1:59:13.

After New York, McFadden traded in her racing chair for skis and began training as a cross-country skier. At the Sochi Winter Paralympics she won a silver medal.

 It’s been back to the roads since then. McFadden won the London Marathon in April in a course-record 1:45:12, followed that with a two-minute victory in Boston in 1:35:06 while wearing the name of 8-year-old Boston bombing victim Martin Richard on her jersey, and last month claimed her fifth Chicago Marathon crown in 1:44:50.

If we are honest with ourselves, we would admit that had an able-bodied athlete accomplished half as much in the same period of time, he or she would grace magazine covers, would be fixtures on television and would be swatting away prospective sponsors.

Even looking back two years, South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius accomplished a fraction of what McFadden has, yet his story was embraced – hell, it was championed – by the mainstream media ahead of the London Olympics. He was held up as a hero for being a disabled athlete challenging the boundaries of what we perceive as being humanly possible.

Is McFadden any different in that regard?

No, but for some reason we have found it easier to relate to a double-amputee trying to run fast on carbon fiber blades than a woman doing the same in her chair.

“It can be a little bit harder to break through as a wheelchair athlete because, when you like see it, people can ask, ‘How can I relate to that person?’” McFadden said. “Well, it’s much more than just seeing what’s on the outside. Yes, you can look at us and see we’re in a wheelchair. But if you look deeper, we all have a story. We all go through struggles. We all have a falling point in our lives. We all get back up, and we fight to become champions.”

In that regard, McFadden is an equally remarkable woman.

Born with spina bifida and paralyzed below the waist, McFadden lived in an orphanage in St. Petersburg, Russia until the age of six. With no means of getting around, she taught herself to walk on her hands.

In 1994, Deborah McFadden, then Commissioner of Disabilities for the U.S. Department of Health, saw Tatyana while visiting the orphanage on a routine business trip. Astounded by her strength and will to survive, Deborah adopted Tatyana and brought her home to Clarksville, Maryland.

Physically weak, Deborah enrolled her daughter in as many sports as she could possibly find. McFadden dabbled in wheelchair basketball, swimming, ice hockey, and even scuba diving before falling in love with wheelchair racing.

At age 15, McFadden was the youngest member of the U.S. Paralympic Team in Athens, where she won two medals. The following year, she wanted to compete in high school track events against able-bodied students but was denied by Atholton High School.

The McFaddens sued the Howard County Public School System and won the right for her to compete. The legal victory led to the passage of Tatyana’s Law, which allows all disabled students to compete in sporting events alongside able-bodied students, and is credited for the eventual passage of the Maryland Fitness and Athletics Equity for Students with Disabilities Act, requiring schools to give students with disabilities the opportunity to compete in interscholastic athletics.

McFadden has since competed at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics and 2012 London Paralympics, winning four medals at each, including three gold in London. She has also won 12 medals at the IPC World Championships, including an unprecedented six gold in every event from 100m to 5000m in 2013.
In 2011, McFadden returned to the orphanage in which she spent her formative years, stunning the longtime members of the staff, some which presumed she had died from her illness, with her athletic feats. She presented them with her gold medal from the 2010 New York City Marathon.