Oksana Baiul
Overview
 
Oksana Serhiyivna Baiul (born November 16, 1977) is a Ukrainian
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...

  professional figure skater
Figure skating
Figure skating is an Olympic sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform spins, jumps, footwork and other intricate and challenging moves on ice skates. Figure skaters compete at various levels from beginner up to the Olympic level , and at local, national, and international competitions...

. She is the 1994 Olympic Champion
Figure skating at the 1994 Winter Olympics
Referee:* Britta LindgrenAssistant Referee:* Gerhardt BubníkJudges: Wendy Utley Jan Olesinski Jarmila Portová Alfred Korytek Yang Jiasheng Margaret Ann Wier Noriko Shirota Audrey Williams Jan Hoffmann Monique Petis -Pairs:...

 in Ladies' Singles and 1993 World Champion
World Figure Skating Championships
The World Figure Skating Championships is an annual figure skating competition sanctioned by the International Skating Union in which elite figure skaters compete for the title of World Champion...

.
Baiul was born in Dnipropetrovsk
Dnipropetrovsk
Dnipropetrovsk or Dnepropetrovsk formerly Yekaterinoslav is Ukraine's third largest city with one million inhabitants. It is located southeast of Ukraine's capital Kiev on the Dnieper River, in the south-central region of the country...

, Ukrainian SSR
Ukrainian SSR
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic or in short, the Ukrainian SSR was a sovereign Soviet Socialist state and one of the fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union lasting from its inception in 1922 to the breakup in 1991...

, USSR. Her parents divorced when she was two years old, her father disappeared from her life, and she was raised by her mother, Marina. Marina died of ovarian cancer
Ovarian cancer
Ovarian cancer is a cancerous growth arising from the ovary. Symptoms are frequently very subtle early on and may include: bloating, pelvic pain, difficulty eating and frequent urination, and are easily confused with other illnesses....

 when Oksana was 13; Oksana had already lost her maternal grandparents and believed at the time that she was an orphan and had no other relatives.

Her coach looked after her for a while, but when he emigrated to Canada, she was on her own and sleeping on a cot at her hometown ice rink.
 
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