Baiul, who shocked Kerrigan to take the gold medal last week in Lillehammer, was part of the Ukrainian delegation led by President Leonid Kravchuk visiting the White House on Friday.


The orphan, 16, wearing a bandage on one leg and both legs bruised, posed for pictures with President Bill Clinton, Kravchuk and 1992 Olympic skating champion Viktor Petrenko of Ukraine.


At a news conference, Clinton congratulated Baiul for a gold-medal victory that some Americans thought should have been Kerrigan's.


"It was a very pleasant, happy moment," a U.S. official said.


Baiul, her blonde hair pulled tight and tied in a blue velvet bow, sat in the third row of the East Room surrounded by Ukrainian men in dark blue suits.


She and Petrenko stood and smiled as the president called notice to her presence and said Kravchuk was taking them to everyone of the meetings of his Wasington agenda.


"I think its kind of neat that he asked her to come," Clinton said after the news conference.


The presence of Baiul raised a few eyebrows among the youthful White House staff because Clinton has yet to host the American Olympic team. Silver-medal winner Kerrigan and her Olympic teammates will visit the White House April 13.


"Clinton wants to figure out how a skater from a little place like Ukraine could have beaten America's favorite, Nancy Kerrigan," Vasyl Karlenko, a senior official on Ukraine's National Olympic Committee, said in Kiev.


White House spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers said "we're thrilled to be having them here" and noted of Baiul: "I think she packs more toughness per pound than any person I've ever seen."


Baiul is said to be considering training in Hartford, Connecticut, because of poor training facilities in her Black Sea hometown of Odessa, where Kravchuk has issued strict orders that the facilities be improved.


"Our attitude is, if she wants to do that (move to the United States), that's her decision," said White House spokesman Arthur Jones.


(Reuters, AP)