Oyuna Uranchimeg: The USA wheelchair curler who found a new path after life-changing accident

"I tell people this is the country where I was reborn," says Oyuna Uranchimeg, Team USA wheelchair curler.

"Because the accident kind of put me in America with this new life, with this new path. It's an incredible and also very humbling thing to be able to represent the country at this level."

Uranchimeg is speaking to Olympics.com at the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games.

Twenty years ago she visited the U.S. from Mongolia and her life changed forever.

"Just after a week of my arrival in the US, I was in a car accident and I sustained a spinal cord injury which paralysed me from the waist down. I had to use a wheelchair for the remainder of my life."

"When this kind of thing happens, you get depressed, you lose hope for your life or your future. And when you don't see any hope for your future, it's hard to live.

"So I was at that stage shortly after my injury and there were times that I contemplated suicide and things like that thinking that my life is over."

Oyuna Uranchimeg: "I had to pull through for my kids"

"I guess that's also part of the grieving process," she continues.

"When you lose something big in your life - because losing half of your body's function is huge - you can't move your legs, you can't feel your legs.

"Not only that, also you can't really go to the bathroom like you used to normally. It's a huge change in your life.

"So when I was going through my grieving stages that's what I felt like. But along the way, a lot of people helped me to get out of that situation, to see things in a different light and give me some hope.

"I had to pull through it and didn't have any choice, especially when you have kids, when you're a parent, you have an obligation to raise your kids and to be there for them, right?

"And I had a kid, so I could not just say 'OK, this is it, I'm going to go and die, and I don't care what happens to my kid.' I can't do that.

"I had no basically no option or choice but to be a parent and then to continue raising him, so I guess that kind of helped me to get through it... ignore my sorrow and just pull through."

"When tragic things happen, most people who are seeing this, they kind of think, OK, how can that person go through this?

"If I were in her shoes or in his shoes, I wouldn't be able to survive or get through or handle it as well as that person.

"But when you are actually going through it, you have no choice but to get through it because there is no other choice... I guess the only other choice would be just give up and die."

"Especially when your kids are small and when they need you the most. It was the hardest thing for me to be away from them when they need you, I think my son suffered a lot too.

"I tend to cry whenever I talk about those times," she says as the tears begin flowing, "because my poor little boy, just six years old, had never been away from mom and dad.

"He missed me every single day, so it was just really hard."

"Both my kids are extremely proud"

Now her kids are proudly watching mom compete at the Beijing 2022 Paralympics representing the USA, even though she took up curling just six years ago.

"My son just yesterday was watching the game, U.S. versus Norway with his colleagues, with his co-workers, and they were like screaming and yelling at the screen because it was pretty intense game.

"Both of them are extremely proud of me. One thing is as a parent I would like to kind of set an example to my kids: What it means to have a goal and what it takes to go after your goal and to accomplish that goal.

"So I hope my kids will see me that I'm going through this goal and achieving this and then take that in. And then whatever life's goal they have, they would also do the same thing and go after what they want and stick with it and accomplish those goals.

"In fact, my daughter is preparing for MCAT to go to medical school, so I hope she accomplishes that goal and I hope I inspire her to go after her goal and stick with it and not just give up."

How brunch led to the Paralympics for Oyuna Uranchimeg

So how did wheelchair curling come into her life?

"Up until six years ago, I really had no idea about curling, so only time I ever heard or seen curling was on TV during the Olympic coverage.

"You know, you flip the channel and there are people sliding a stone and somebody looks like cleaning the stone and I just had no idea what that was.

"I actually had a friend who was a club curler in in the Twin Cities area, so he talked about curling, but I didn't really pay attention, and then that friend one day called me up and said he had a surprise for me and he wanted me to meet some people.

"So I just showed up because he said we can have lunch or brunch and I said, OK, let's go eat!

"So anyway, that was my surprise and that led me to meet the national team and then the team's coaches when they were having the training camp in Blaine, Minnesota, just six years ago.

"I never actually even thought about being an athlete up until that point. I really just had a normal life, just working full time and worrying about my bills and making sure my kids are out of trouble... a very typical life.

"It was a very good surprise, I guess, and one which kind of changed my life from that point."

"It still seems unreal to me"

A few years later Oyuna was on a plane to the Paralympics.

"It was in a way kind of surreal, like I am actually here, like surrounded by all these great athletes, not only my team.

"So all the other athletes, like the multiple times Paralympians and then the people who had achieved so much in their sports career, right, like several gold medals and the silver medals and all that.

"The sled hockey team and the Nordic ski and alpine ski and then all those athletes, it was just kind of unbelievable. Like, I'm actually sitting amongst this crowd. It's just surreal, you know?

"I mean, I was an administrative assistant sitting in the office and just helping other people so never actually imagined myself being called an athlete and actually representing the country.

"It's... just still kind of seems unreal to me, yeah, it's crazy... I don't know what I've done in my previous life to deserve this, I must have saved the country to be rewarded with such an opportunity! So. Yeah, it's it's incredible, really."

Oyuna Uranchimeg: "Proud of what I have accomplished"

"I'm really not super competitive and I but I do like to do best," she continues.

"But I am also somewhat of a perfectionist, and when I'm doing something, I want to get it done perfectly so maybe that's why the curling kind of suited my personality in a way.

"When you're training, you want to perfect that shot, right? So I think because basically you're kind of competing against yourself. So at least in my case, I am competing against myself, and I'm kind of trying to beat myself from yesterday.

"And then just from last month, so I want to get better and better. Perfect shot, perfect routine... I guess that's a little bit like OCD people do. So I guess have a little bit OCD tendencies, and you sometimes get obsessed with making things perfect.

"So I guess that's why I train really hard and I want to just perfect the skills that you need."

Uranchimeg is aiming at writing a new page of Paralympic history by winning Team USA's first ever curling medal at the Beijing Paralympic Games, but even if she doesn't achieve that goal, she knows she's come a long way.

"So yeah, even even if we go back without any medal I would still be very proud of what I have accomplished so far and with the experience that I had here."

And she already has one eye on the Winter Paralympics in Italy in 2026, where wheelchair mixed doubles will debut.

Oyuna Uranchimeg is only getting started.