Oksana Serhiyivna Baiul-Farina[a] (née Baiul; born November 16, 1977) is a Ukrainian retired competitive figure skater.

Baiul is the second skater representing Ukraine to win gold at the Winter Olympics after Viktor Petrenko in 1992.

After winning the gold medal in 1994, Baiul decided to move to the United States and participate in professional ice skating tours and shows.

[10] After the 1994 Winter Olympics, Baiul moved to the United States and started living in Simsbury, Connecticut.

[11] In the late 1990s, she followed her coach, Valentyn Nikolayev, to Richmond, Virginia, where she lived for several years before moving to Cliffside Park, New Jersey.

[12] After residing there for 14 years, Baiul moved to Pennsylvania in March 2012,[13] settling in Upper Makefield Township, Bucks County.

[14] In January 1997 (three years after winning the gold medal), Baiul was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol after crashing her car into a tree in Bloomfield, Connecticut.

[7][17] In 2003, years after her father left the family, she phoned her old rink in Dnipro to ask for assistance in locating him.

He accepted due to lack of support for the sport in Ukraine as it struggled economically after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

[1] In August 1992, his father, Alfred Koritek, vice-president of the Ukrainian skating federation, called coach Galina Zmievskaya on Baiul's behalf.

[1] Zmievskaya welcomed her into her circle of elite skaters, and provided her shelter in her family's cramped three-room apartment in the city.

Baiul began competing and took the silver medal at the 1993 European Championships in Helsinki, finishing second to Surya Bonaly of France.

[18] Prior to the 1993 World Championships in Prague, Baiul had crashed into the boards and displaced disks in her back and neck.

[8] Ranked second in the short program and first in the free skate, she finished ahead of Bonaly and became world champion at age 15.

[18] During a practice session before the long program, she collided with Germany's Tanja Szewczenko, sustaining a wrenched lower back and a cut on her right shin, which required three stitches.

She received two Olympic-approved pain-killing injections of anaesthetics in her lower back and shoulder, which enabled her to compete in the free skate.

[4] Baiul was announced as the winner after Surya Bonaly and Katarina Witt completed their respective programs out of medal contention.

Despite their status as Olympic champions, Baiul and Viktor Petrenko faced difficulties in Odesa, as did fellow Ukrainians across the country.

Zmievskaya negotiated a very profitable contract for her to tour the United States following the Olympics and earn money with her sport.

In May 1994, at age 16, Baiul signed an agreement with the American talent agency William Morris Endeavor.

[citation needed] In 1994, Zmievskaya was asked to lead the coaching staff at Simsbury, Connecticut's newly built International Skating Center.

[10] Baiul had completed a rehab program and, in August 1998, she began training under Natalia Linichuk at the University of Delaware's skating center.

She was also part of the celebrity panel of judges (along with Steve Garvey and Jonny Moseley) on the ABC show Master of Champions, which aired briefly in 2006.

[14][28] In January 2015, Baiul publicly accused her former coaches and compatriots Galina Zmievskaya, Viktor Petrenko, and their manager, Joseph Lemire, of fraud, claiming they 'have been stealing money' from her for more than a decade.

[10] In addition, she accused Lemire of fraudulent attempts to represent her in multiple court proceedings in Ukraine against the state, concerning various assets.