Oksana Baiul

Oksana Serhiyivna Baiul-Farina (; born 16 November 1977) is a Ukrainian retired competitive figure skater. She is the 1993 world champion and the 1994 Olympic champion in ladies' singles. Baiul is the first and only skater representing Ukraine to win gold at the Winter Olympics. She is also the first Olympic champion of independent Ukraine in any sport. After winning the gold medal in 1994, Baiul decided to turn professional in order to tour in the United States and have a career based on her skating. She followed one of her coaches to Connecticut. Later, she also became involved in a variety of TV appearances, and benefit skates. She has lived in the United States since 1994. In 1997 she published two books, a memoir about her life and one on skating. Early life Baiul was born on 16 November 1977 in Dnipro, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union, an industrial city famous for manufacturing Soviet missiles. Her parents divorced when she was two years old, and her father, Sergey Baiul—who died in 2006—disappeared shortly after. No one is certain whether he deserted his family or was pressured to leave town when he and his wife divorced. She was raised by her mother, Marina, a French teacher, and her maternal grandparents. In addition to having Ukraine ancestry, she is of Russian descent through her maternal grandfather.