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Stephen Fish of World Skate Inc. said Wednesday that the pair plan to move to the Hartford area because they want better training facilities than are available to them in their home country. At the rink the two Olympic gold-medal winners train at, there is no ice cleaning equipment and the skaters are forced to do the job themselves by hand.
Baiul, 16, edged American Nancy Kerrigan for the women's singles figure skating gold medal at the Lillehammer Olympics last week.
Petrenko, who finished out of the medals in Lillehammer, won the men's figure skating gold at the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, France.
Baiul and Petrenko share the same coach, Galina Zmiyevskaya, who is also expected to relocate to Connecticut.
Zmiyevskaya is also Baiul's guradian and Petrenko's mother-in-law. Baiul's mother died when she was 13 and her father disappeared shortly after Bauil was born. After her first coach took a job in Canada, Bauil was taken in by Zmiyevskaya.
Zmiyevskaya has had offers from several rinks in the United States besides the Hartford offer.
Besides the Olympic crown, Zmiyevskaya guided Baiul to the World Championship title last year in Prague, where the young Ukrainian burst on to the international figure skating scene. Her Olympic success nearly did not happen after she collided with a German figure skater the day before the women's Olympic free programs. She required three stitches in her left leg and hurt her back. However, she was able to skate and edged out Kerrigan for the gold and finally pushed the Kerrigan-Tonya Harding conflict out of the news.
She arrived back in Ukraine earlier this week to a hero's welcome and was met by Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk.
The Hartford City Council has approved construction of a $5 million skating center on the University of Hartford campus. The center is to have one Olympic figure skating rink and a second rink meeting National Hockey League standards.
Fish did not know when Baiul and Petrenko plan to move to Connecticut, but said the rink is expected to be ready by mid-September.(MT, Reuters)
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