A Wasted Talent

Oksana Baiul is a name that I'll never forget. She is an Ukrainian ice skater that showed the world how it's done. I remember her skating at the Olympics in 1994 in Lillehammer. She came from nowhere, no one knew her, we've never heard of her and she took the gold medal.

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Usually in any sports athletes are building a career little by little till they can reach the highest level. Some of them are different as they can get to the podium at their first big competition. Oksana Baiul was one of them.

She won the World championship in 1993 in Prague and then the Olympics in 1994 in Lillehammer.

You may ask me why I remember her. I do because she was a beauty on ice, a real diamond, very talented with a promising career ahead of her. I was hoping to see her in the upcoming years winning more competition and showing us better and better performances.

This however never happened as she decided to turn professional in 1994. I don't watch professional ice skating, so knew nothing about her skating career afterwards but I've seen her in the news and wasn't good

She was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol in 1997 after crashing
her car into a tree. It shocked me, this is not something I was expecting. She had a very difficult childhood and looks like her luck ran out, although that's just something people usually say as that has nothing to do with luck, she did it with her hands.

Her parents divorced when she was two years old, her father disappeared shortly after and she was raised by her mother and maternal grandparents. Her grandfather died in 1987, her grandmother in 1988, her mother in 1991, so by the time she turned 13 she had no family.

As I said in the beginning, she won the World Championship in 1993 and then the Olympics in 1994. I truly admire her for having the strength to continue her training and be the best, just tho years after losing her mother.

I believe she could have had a great career as a skater but maybe she lacked the support or the advise of someone, who knows. Some skaters are competing till the age of 26, 27. She could have had a good ten years in ice skating.