Oksana’s parents separated when she was a baby. Her mother lived with her grandparents, and it could have been a happy story. Unfortunately, her grandmother died. Then her grandfather died. Just when things couldn’t get any worse, her mother died at age 13. Although her mother had remarried, her stepfather didn’t feel any responsibility for her, and she had to fend for herself.

At times, she would sleep with friends; other times, she slept at the ice rink. Her coach helped her out. Then he left for a job in Canada, but suggested that Galina Zmievskaya coach her. Zmievskaya heard her story, and not only decided to coach her, she decided to support her. Oksana was able to stay at her house.

Not only did she have a place to live, but at age 15, she won the world championship, becoming the youngest winner since Sonja Henie won in 1927.

At the Olympics, Baiul was second behind Kerrigan after the technical program. The following day during practice, she collided with another skater, Tanja Szewczenko, and had to have three stitches on her right shin. She came back the following night and eked out a win over Kerrigan for the gold.

Later that year, Oksana had to have knee surgery; she started skating before her doctors advised, and her skating ability was never the same. She later moved to the United States with her adoptive family. She still skates professionally from time to time. Most recently, she skated at the One Step Closer HIV AIDS figure skating exhibition on March 27th of this year.

A news report about her appears below:

Particularly upsetting is how animal rights activists have sent Weir death threats because they don’t like how he used fur on one of his costumes. What is more important, animals or people? Of course, some people would say animals, but I have to disagree.

In this interview with Johnny Weir on the George Lopez show, Weir seems to imply that the reason why he did not get a medal was because the judges wanted diversity on the medal stand, and Evan Lysacek was already guaranteed a medal. That’s not really keeping history in mind. In 2002, two Russians took the top spots; in 1956, all three top spots wen to the US; Norway took silver and bronze in 1920, and in 1908, all three top spots went to Sweden. In women’s skating, the US had two medals in 2002, took the top two spots in 1998, and received two medals in 1992; in 1920, Sweden took the top two spots; in 1908, Great Britain won two medals. This may not be a large amount of years when one country took two places on the podium, but if it truly was political, Weir would have come in fourth, not sixth.

Weir was turned down from Stars on Ice because he was not “family friendly” enough. While his controversial life outside of the ice really doesn’t necessarily translate to how he would skate on tour, I guess they have the right to choose who they want to feature or not.

Johnny Weir will be on the George Lopez show tomorrow, so if you are interested in seeing him, you might want to watch. In the meantime, here’s a video of him skating to Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face”.

If you watched the figure skating competition in the Vancouver Olympics, especially ladies’ figure skating, you may have heard a few references to Sonja Henie. She skated for Norway, and had an extremely long career that started early.

Henie was just 11 years old when she skated in her first Olympics, the 1924 Chamonix Olympics. She wasn’t exactly sure what to do, and skated over to the sidelines during the performance to ask what to do next. Not surprisingly, she came in eighth place, in an Olympics where only 13 ladies competed.

In 1928 in St. Moritz, 27 ladies competed, but Sonja Henie was ready. She came in first place. She would repeat this feat in 1932 Lake Placid and in the 1936 games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in which 80 ladies competed. The Olympic Games did not take place for another 12 years due to World War II, but Henie wouldn’t have been eligible to compete in a fifth Olympics anyway, as she gave up her amateur status after the 1936 Olympics.

Henie became very popular, and the police had to escort her in several cities. She became friendly with Adolph Hitler, and gave the Nazi salute during a performance in Berlin in 1935. While this may sound controversial today, at the time, Hitler was popular with many people all over the world, even in the United States.

After her skating career was over, Henie went into films. She starred in One in a Million and nine other films. She proved to have a good head for business: in 1941, her contract ran out the day before she finished filming Sun Valley Serenade, and she ended up convincing Twentieth Century Fox to pay her $225,000 for one day of work.

In her 50s, Henie was diagnosed with leukemia. She died in 1969 at age 57. She is considered by many to be one of the best figure skaters ever.

Most people like to see other people overcome tragedy. Perhaps this is why we root for the underdog at times. Perhaps its because we all face difficult situations, and if someone else can overcome difficulties, then maybe we can too.

One of the most powerful stories of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics is the story of Joannie Rochette, a figure skater from Canada. Her mother died on Sunday, only two days before she was to skate in her short program. While nobody could blame her if she dropped out, Joannie decided to continue.

On Tuesday night, Joannie skated beautifully; in fact, she skated her way to third place. With tears in her eyes as she left the ice, you couldn’t help but to imagine how she must have felt.

She completed the figure skating competition on Thursday with the free skate, and again, skated wonderfully. She ended up winning the bronze medal.

You can’t help but to admire her. It’s the stuff of what Olympic Visa Commercials are made of.

Today was a quiet day for competition. The big event for the day was the ice dancing finals. The cross-country team sprints for men and women took place, as well as freestyle skiing aerials qualifications, ice hockey semifinals, and the ski jumping team large hill.

Ice dancing was great this evening. Meryl Davis and Charlie White skated an awesome performance to Phantom of the Opera. It was enough to win the silver medal. Canada’s Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir came in first, although I personally did not find it as engaging as the second place performance. Russia came in third, while USA’s Belbin and Agosto finished in fourth (but they skated great).  This placement marks the first time anybody from North America has won an ice dancing gold medal.  Sinead and John Kerr, British siblings, performed an interesting move where Sinead picked up her brother! Another performance that I enjoyed was Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder of France skating to “The Impossible Dream”.

In the cross country team sprint, Norway won gold for the men, while the Germans won for the ladies. German men took silver for the men, while Sweden won silver for the ladies. The Russian men and women both won bronze.

It was a good day for Germany and Norway in ski jumping as well. They took silver and bronze, respectively. Austria took the gold with a runaway win. The US team did not qualify for the finals, and Simon Amman did not compete today, as Switzerland did not have a team in the competition.

The aerials qualifiers were held in freestyle skiing today. The United States qualified two men, Ryan St. Onge and Jeret “Speedy” Peterson. Scotty Bahrke, Shannon Bahrke’s younger brother, did not qualify, along with Matt DePeters. It was an exciting event to watch.

The women’s ice hockey semifinals took place today.  The United States beat Sweden, while Canada beat Finland, to make it to the gold medal round, which will take place on Thursday.

Ladies figure skating begins tomorrow, as does men’s giant slalom and the debut of women’s ski cross. It should be a good day. Currently, the medal count stands at 25 medals for the US, 21 for Germany, and 14 for Norway.

On day 10 of the Vancouver Olympics, Bode Miller finally won his first gold medal, in the Super Combined. After a disappointing 0 medals in Torino, I’m sure that he’s pretty happy.

Both the men’s and women’s mass start events took place in biathlon. If you have been following the biathlon results, you may recognize Germany’s Magalena Neuner, who won the gold medal in women’s pursuit, and received a silver medal in the sprint. Evgeny Ustyugov won the men’s medal for the Russians.

The two-man bobsleigh event concluded today; the German team of André Lange and Kevin Kuske came in first. A second German team took the silver medal, while Russia won the bronze. The three teams from the United States placed sixth, tenth, and twelfth.

Ice dancers held their Original Dance competition today. Meryl Davis and Charlie White did well, while Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto came in fourth again. Tomorrow’s final night of competition, with the Russian team of Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin, and the Canadian team of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, could be close.

Ski cross made its debut today, with Switzerland’s Michael Schmid winning the first gold medal ever. US skiers Casey Puckett and Daron Rahlves qualified for the heats, but were eliminated in the first round.

Ladies’ speed skating continued with the 1500 m race. The Netherlands won the gold with Ireen Wust’s performance, while Kristina Groves of Canada won the silver.

The United States now has a current total of 24 medals, with 7 of them being gold.

Probably the most memorable event of the 1994 Olympics, for many, was the attack on Nancy Kerrigan, just prior to the Olympic games. It later was discovered that Tonya Harding’s bodyguard was the man involved, in an attempt to take Kerrigan out of competition. It didn’t work, and Kerrigan went on to win the silver. Harding, on the other hand, not only didn’t win a medal (she came in eighth), she seemed to turn to the scandalous after that. Harding became better known for sex tapes and celebrity boxing than skating well.

Lillehammer was also the year that Dan Jansen took his victory lap with his daughter, Jane, now made famous by those Visa commercials. He won the 1000 meter speed skating event this year, two Olympics after getting the bad news during the 1988 Olympics that his sister had died the morning of the competition.

Most of the 1994 competitors have long since retired, but a few are still hanging around. Luge’s Armin Zöggeler won the bronze medal for Italy, and Mark Grimmette, the flagbearer for the US Olympic team this year, were part of the Lillehammer games.

In cross-country, the women had their 15 km pursuit. Marit Bjørgen once again wins gold for Norway, while Sweden’s Anna Haag, who came in fourth in the 10 km individual race, ended up with the silver medal.

The ice dancers had their compulsive dance program. Unlike pairs and singles skating, ice dancing has three nights of competition. The Russian team of Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin are first after the first day, but don’t count out Charlie White and Meryl Davis, or Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto, just yet. They came in third and fourth, with two evenings of competition to go. The third US team came in 14th.

Skeleton finished its final day of competition. Jon Montgomery of Canada took the gold for the men, and Great Britain’s Amy Williams won the ladies’ event. Noelle Pikus-Pace of the United States came in fourth, only one tenth of a second away from the bronze.

The ski jumping quals for the large hill occurred today. Nicholas Alexander and Peter Frenette of the United States made it to tomorrow’s event.

As far as good moments go, Evan Lysacek won the gold medal in men’s figure skating. I haven’t had the chance to see his performance yet, but his short program was outstanding. Johnny Weir came in sixth, and Jeremy Abbot improved his standings from Monday night to come in ninth overall. Evgeni Plushenko had to be satisfied with silver. Interesting to note, whenever an American world defending champion in men’s figure skating is at the Olympics, they have always won gold.

The ladies didn’t take halfpipe gold (that was Torah Bright, the Australian flag bearer), but the United States did get silver and bronze. Hannah Teter came back to the medal stand for the silver, while 2002 gold medalist Kelly Clark earned the bronze.

In speed skating, the Netherlands had a good day, as they earned silver and bronze in the 1000 meter women’s event. Christine Nesbitt of Canada won home gold, however.

In the 20 km individual biathlon event, there was a tie for the silver medal, and Norway earned one of them. Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen also won the gold.

Lindsey Vonn fell during the slalom portion of today’s super combined. Her German friend, Maria Reisch, won the gold. The United State’s Julia Mancuso came home with her second silver of the games, and Sweden’s Anja Pärson won the bronze. Vonn should be able to compete in the next event, the Super G, on Saturday.

I haven’t been following hockey or curling, but it looks like the United States, Canada, Finland, and Sweden are in the ladies’ hockey semifinals. The United States and Canada could face each other in the finals. That would be an interesting game. The men are still trying to determine who will make the quarterfinals. I’m not sure how the curlers are doing.

The 1998 games in Nagano saw a few changes, and had several spectacular moments.

Each Olympic sport is allowed to set the rules for professionalism in the Olympics, and in 1998, professional hockey players were allowed to compete. Although the United States and Canada were expected to dominate, neither one even medaled: Canada came in fourth, while the United States took sixth place.

Tara Lipinski won the gold medal in figure skating for the United States; she beat Sonja Henie’s record for being the youngest person to win a gold medal in an individual event. This was especially exciting for me, as one of my sorority sisters was an ice skater that trained with Lipinski.

The weather in Nagano affected the skiing schedules, and events had to be delayed (sounds like what’s going on in Vancouver right now).