The Odyssey of an Orphan

By Susanna Schrobsdorff/Odessa

A strange fog has shrouded the rink at the Odessa Sports Palace, making the skaters look as if they are gliding on air. The decrepit building's ancient cooling system is losing the battle with September sunshine. When the air finally clears, only one skater still looks as if she is floating. She is Oksana Baiul, 16, the world figure-skating champion and the favorite to win the gold in the Olympics next month. It is astonishing that she can train at all on the soft, uneven ice, but a bad surface has been just one of the problems she has had to cope with.

The worst was losing her mother to cancer at 13. Oksana's father had deserted the family when she was two. So only her coach, Stanislav Korytek, was left, and he was at her side at the funeral. Afterward, he observed, "she needed to go on the ice. She was just out there gliding and crying, crying and gliding."

A year later, Oksana had to sever another tie. As the Ukrainian economy worsened, the coach found it hard to support his family. He jumped at a job offer in Canada, but before leaving, he bequeathed Oksana to his colleague, Galina Zmievskaya. She had already trained 1992 Olympic gold-medal winner Viktor Petrenko. She took in Oksana as a third daughter.

Quickly the girl leaped from 12th place in the former Soviet Union to second in Europe. Then came victory in Prague. She has all the makings of an ice princess: long legs, a dancer's grace and a sweet face. She also has a good repertoire of triple jumps. But she wins because her programs are packed with youthful energy and laced with sensuality.

When asked how she succeeds, she talks about faith. She says it is "God and hard work" that help her win. And though she is called an orphan, Oksana says she has never really been alone: "My mother will never leave me. We're together. She will always stay in my heart." In the tiny bedroom she shares with one of Zmievskaya's daughters, she keeps pictures of the Virgin Mary but none of her mother. She does not need them.

Her coach's mother takes her to church and teaches her Christian traditions forgotten during the Soviet era. Oksana's new sense of stability shows in her skating and the laughter that bubbles up when she is asked to describe herself: "A girl who can't sit still."

Friends help make her costumes, and Petrenko chips in on skates. Even Zmievskaya gets to the rink early, shovel in hand, to clean the ice. So why do they stay here rather than seek out prestigious shelter in the West? Zmievskaya explains, "We want to be in Odessa. We would never have the money to pay for everything in America. Here our choreographers are free, the best and poorest in the world."

Still, Oksana spins between expensive hotel suites during U.S. tours and the dingy apartment block where she lives in Odessa. Million-dollar endorsements are not hard to foresee. American friends like skater Jill Trenary think that Oksana will handle it all when the time comes.

Right now she and her coach are concentrating on her new short program, set to Swan Lake. "Go, go!" shouts the teacher. "You should be flying." It is advice that Oksana Baiul does not need.