My Sergei (25 page)

That was the first time we saw Oksana Baiul. She was coached by Galina Zmievskaya, which was surprising to us, because Galina
never trained girls. I remember Galina telling me the year before about Oksana, when she was just fourteen, and I thought
to myself, for Galina to brag about this girl no one’s ever heard of, she must really be good. A short time later, in her
very first appearance there, she won the 1993 World Championship.

Oksana was so young. Galina’s daughter, Nina Petrenko, who was married to Viktor, kept following her around during the Garmisch
exhibition because Oksana didn’t know where her dress was, where her hairpiece was, what time she was supposed to go on. She
couldn’t take care of herself. I dressed beside her before the exhibition, and she wasn’t a bit timid or shy. German television
had prepared a special feature on Oksana. In the dressing room, this program was playing on the TV, but she didn’t seem to
want to watch it at all. We were all warming up for the show, doing our stretching exercises, and Oksana was looking around,
eating something. Nina Petrenko said she never warmed up before skating.

It was strange, but I felt kind of proud to be with this girl. When I was first in the Olympics, I was the same age as Oksana
was when I first met her, and just being around her made me feel younger. She wasn’t in the least bit awed to talk to the
older, more experienced skaters. I needed a barrette for my hair, and she casually said, “Here you go,” and tossed me one.
Then I watched her do her number, to
Swan Lake,
and it was very beautiful. Her dress was so professional, and so was her hairpiece, and she did not skate at all like a young
girl. Everything was as it was supposed to be.

The European Championships in 1994 were in Copenhagen, which was also a good sign for Sergei and me, since they’d also been
there in 1986, the first year that we won the Worlds. We stayed in the same hotel, used the same dressing room, walked down
the same streets. We went to the same store to shop and drew our starting order from the same hall. Each time I discovered
something the same, I mentioned it to Sergei, who told me that I talked too much about the past. He said it was a very bad
habit.

It was great to see everybody again, all the professionals who had come back to the amateur ranks. We saw Katarina Witt getting
ready, and she said to us, “It’s a different life now, right?” She was laughing and having fun and appeared relaxed, but I
didn’t believe it. I think that was all put on for show.

We, on the other hand, were not at all relaxed. We were as serious and intense as we’d ever been, spurred on by a fear of
failure. The day before the short program we had an 8:00
A.M.
practice, and we were the only skaters who showed up. That’s when I thought we were really crazy. But Sergei had been focused
like that all year. I was amazed at how intent he was on getting us ready. It had started way back the previous March and
April, during the Stars on Ice tour, when we only had a half hour of practice ice a day. He’d say, “This practice we have
to pay more attention to the triple twist.” The next practice, it would be our spins. Something different every day, and always
very specific.

As a result, I felt absolutely confident and comfortable with both our long and short programs, and I think the European Championships
was the best that we skated them, better even than the Olympics. We beat Dmitriev and Mishkutenok, as we’d done at the Nationals,
which also gave us confidence. Ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean had also returned to amateur competition that
year, and in Copenhagen they drew big audiences to all of their practices. They skated great, and also won the Europeans,
but I liked the Russian team of Oksana Gritschuk and Evgeny Platov better. Torvill and Dean were almost too perfect, too professional.
Their program didn’t bring any excitement. In the women’s competition, Oksana was beaten by Surya Bonaly of France.

In America the big news was this attack on Nancy Kerrigan in which Tonya Harding was involved. We didn’t hear much about it
in Russia, but Marina told us that every day at home they were leading the newscasts with it. The attack was almost beyond
my comprehension—dirty, inhuman—and left a black mark on the whole sport. I always believed sport was supposed to bring
people together, to bring them peace as well as great entertainment. The whole world watches the Olympic Games, waiting for
them every four years. It is one of the things that is beautiful on this earth, and to have them spoiled by something so unsportsmanlike
was terribly sad.

Everywhere there was also a lot of talk about how the professional skaters had returned to amateur competition and were closing
the door on the younger athletes. The whole year they kept asking us about this in the press. I hated this conversation. It’s
sport. We weren’t closing any doors. All of us were on the same road, competing under the same rules.

It was a very exciting and uncertain time in figure skating, for ridiculous reasons and fine ones.

Clive Brunskill/Allsport

This gold medal we won for each other

Heinz Kluetmeier

“It’s almost like you were preparing your whole career for this program,” said Marina Zueva, who created our Moonlight Sonata program for the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics.

Left to right:
My sister, Maria ,with our dear friends Yegor Guba and Debbie Nast.

Sergei with his friends (left to right) Alexander Zhulin and Artur Dmitriev on tour with Tom Collins in 1994.

Taking time out from practice at Simsbury with (left to right) Marina Zueva, Daria, Marina’s son Fedor; and my mom.

Sergei preparing to jet ski with Paul Wylie and Dennis Petrov.

With Kitty and Peter Carruthers in Aspen during our first year with Stars on Ice.

Sergei always knew how to enjoy himself with friends. Here he is with (left to right) Genrikh Sretenski, Rosalynn Sumners, and Denis Petrov.