Word: baiul
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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After all, all, all that, however, the gold medal in women's figure skating went to neither Nancy Kerrigan nor Tonya Harding but to Ukraine's Oksana Baiul. The outcome was a shock -- but not entirely a surprise. Any member of last Wednesday's TV sport audience knew that Harding was scarcely in physical shape to contend for a medal and that Kerrigan was stronger and more poised than she has ever been. But the enchantress was Baiul, 16, who presented herself elaborately costumed as the Black Swan in Tchaikovsky's ballet. Feathers...
...naive but inspired -- sublimely expressive of the changeling that Baiul is. Her Friday long program, which secured the prize, was shakier, but she moved with rare, sinuous rhythms on the ice. And, irony of ironies, she was recovering from her own injuries suffered the day before. Her physical pain was evident, framing her performance with agony more immediate than the video memories of Kerrigan weeping in Detroit seven weeks ago. The bizarre accident in which the Ukrainian collided with a German competitor during practice had created not only a new victim but prepared the way for a new heroine. Baiul...
...bitter Kerrigan entourage and many skating observers, that's just what the judges did. Baiul's performance was not nearly as clean as her rival's; she two-footed a triple flip (a major gaffe) and simplified another jump. Critics were quick to point out that her first-place rankings each came from four East bloc countries and a German judge from the defunct Democratic Republic. Since the early 1980s, the majority of the nine judges' rankings has carried the day rather than the old system of totaling all points; if Kerrigan had been competing in 1976, when Dorothy Hamill...
...mind and my heart I won. I've learned a lot about myself these last couple of months. There are always some doubts, but I didn't let them enter this year." Others were not so restrained. Her coaches, Evy and Mary Scotvold, refused to utter Baiul's name at a postcontest press conference -- she was instead "the first-place girl." Claire Ferguson, president of the U.S. Figure Skating Association (U.S.F.S.A.), snapped, "Nancy doesn't have that sassy look that Oksana has." It didn't help matters that Baiul's coach, Galina Zmievskaya, marched around wearing the gold medal...
...Barcelona in 1992) and developed a dual role as reporter and logistics organizer. Says deputy chief of correspondents Paul Witteman: "Susanna has been our decathlete, mastering everything from telecommunications in Spain to computers in France to transportation in Seoul. She has reported from Odessa, Ukraine, about figure skater Oksana Baiul and from Copenhagen about the moves and moods of Torvill and Dean. I first saw her in Calgary being hugged by stuffed bears, which were that year's Olympics mascots. Now we all feel the same way about...