Oksana Baiul

Oksana Baiul, born in 1977, Ukrainian figure skater, who won the gold medal in the women's figure skating competition at the 1994 Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway. Born in Dnipropetrovs'k, Baiul began ice skating as a child. In 1991, at the age of 13, she was orphaned when her mother died of cancer (she had never known her father). Shortly thereafter she moved to Odesa (Odessa), Ukraine, to train with Galina Zmievskaya, a top Ukrainian skating coach.

Baiul improved rapidly under Zmievskaya's tutelage, placing second in the women's competition at the 1993 European figure skating championships in Helsinki, Finland. Later that year at the world championships in Prague, Czech Republic, Baiul unexpectedly won the women's competition. At the 1994 Olympics, Baiul continued her success, earning the gold medal in the women's competition. After the Olympics she turned professional.