Oksana Baiul, the darling of the 1994 Winter Olympics, is back–reinventing herself at the University of Delaware where she is training with former Olympian Natalia Linichuk and hoping to regain her amateur status to start competing again in the year 2000.
While she initially seems contemplative and quiet, the 20-year-old skater can just as suddenly become a wisecracking globetrotter who loves to clown and laugh. But, whichever aspect of her personality is showing, it’s clear that she is grateful, happy and excited about what the future may hold.
"Natalia has given me a second chance at life," she says, quietly alluding to the problems that marred her late teens. "It’s weird, but we really understand each other. I feel as if I’ve known her since I was 5 years old."
Linichuk, who–with her husband and partner Gennadiy Karponosov–won the ice dance crown at the 1980 Olympic Games, was named one of the Top 25 most influential forces in the world of figure skating by International Figure Skating (IFS) in 1996.
Baiul was only 16 when she spun her way to an Olympic gold medal in Lillehammer, Norway. Overnight, the 95-pound waif, an orphan who used to sleep alone in deserted ice rinks, became an international darling. While still in her teens, she commanded up to $2 million a year in earnings.
A high-speed car crash, an embarrassing hotel incident and negative publicity while on tour forced her to rethink her lifestyle and her future.
"I was thinking about quitting," she admits. "I hadn’t skated for about six months, which is an awfully long time when you’re someone at the top. Then, last summer, Natalia called me. She said, ‘How are you doing? Can you come and skate here?’"
"I said, ‘Oh, okay. Whatever.’ At that point, I really didn’t know what I was going to do. So, I came. The first time I stepped on this ice, I did a couple of crossovers and I knew it was right. I’ve been here for about two months, and now I can’t wait to start competing again."
For this skating season, which runs from October to June, Baiul has performing commitments for which she will need to keep her professional status. She says it is her "biggest dream" to go back into competition by the year 2000.
At this point in her life, just after her 21st birthday, she is looking ahead to good things. The perky ponytail she wore at the Olympics and the bob she sported through her teens have been replaced with short curls. She now performs as a young woman, not a child, and has had to learn to land jumps with a body some 4 inches taller than it was when she first came to fame.
"On one hand, training again is psychologically hard. On the other hand, it’s good. I’m very hungry to go back in front of an audience," she says. "I enjoy giving myself to the audience."
At UD, she is part of a group of skaters, not treated like a star. For a recent photo shoot, for example, she lined up with the rest of the skaters, waiting her turn in front of the lights just like everyone else. When she works with Linichuk, she takes the ice with other skaters being trained by the coach.
"I like it that way," Baiul says. "Working with a group of Natalia’s students feels good. I don’t like to work by myself. I like to have a lot of people around, to work like everyone else. All I do is sleep, eat and skate."
Looking back at the years since the Olympics, she is philosophical.
"When I turn my head and look back, I try to see only the great moments of my life," she says.
"Everything happens for the best. The things I have been through have made me stronger. I’ve always been a fighter. Nothing in this life has come easily for me. I think I enjoy a good fight. I’ve had to learn, though, that the person with whom I have always competed the most is myself.
"It’s true what they say–what is not killing you is making you stronger. I want to put the bad parts of my life behind me and start a good life. A good life is different for everyone, but for me it is just to live this life and be happy, just doing what I’m doing now," she says.
"Life is exciting right now. I love the whole process of performing– choosing the music, the costumes and the make-up. Then, you have to analyze what you are doing. You can have beautiful lines, beautiful spins, but if you don’t jump, it can be boring. If you jump all the time, it can look too athletic and be boring. Then, eventually, you get to the point where you have to stop analyzing and just go and do it.
"When you step on the ice in front of an audience, it is as if you are a new parent showing the world your baby. My program is my baby. It’s an unbelievable feeling–the love that can exist between you and an audience. It’s something you could never buy with money."
Baiul is working on two new programs, an elegant, balletic one and an upbeat one set to one of her favorite Mariah Carey songs, "My All."
She will soon look for an apartment in the Newark area, one she will share with her Chihuahua, named Taco.
"Originally, I called him ‘Misha,’ which means ‘little one’ in Russian, but everyone who saw him said, ‘Oh! Look! You have the Taco Bell dog!’ Finally, I just changed his name. It doesn’t really matter.
"He is a very handsome, young guy."
–Beth Thomas