Oksana Baiul - The Swan - Olympics Exhibition Gala 1994

Oksana Baiul wonderful program skating in the Swan Lake in the Olympic Exhibition Gala in 1994 in Lillehammer

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• winter
• sports
• figure
• skating
• exhibition
• Olympic
• gala
• 1994
• swan
• Saint-Saëns

[organboi]

this is not "swan lake". it's the "swan" by Saint Saens from 'carnival of the animals."

[erdeepspace]

Thank you. Will fix it in a moment. All the best in the New Year.

[Karolina917]

she was skating with so gracious... she's as elegant as michelle kwan :) many people say that kwan was the first, who skated so emotionally but it's not true- baiul was first

[girlyballerina22]

that isn't swan lake gosh!!!!!

[urmaniac13]

@urmaniac13 I just rewatched the video and yes it was the triple toe. She was not the strongest of the jumpers and if I was to name one flaw in her skating, she needed so much concentration before she jumped and that tended to break the flow of the performance a little. She must have had to think very hard about throwing in that improvised jump, but at that moment it didn't show at all, she just looked like having a ball out there. I defo commend her on that guts.

[urmaniac13]

she did improvise one triple (cherry if I remember correctly) towards the end of the free programme. yes 18 years is a long time, but I remember the Lillehammer games as if it happened just a couple of years ago. It was one of the best Olympics ever, along with Torino :-)

[knightflyte]

@OreadNYC 18 years is a long time to remember. LOL

[OreadNYC]

@knightflyte -- I suppose Baiul could have changed her routine and added something in order to make up for the flawed jump, but I honestly don't remember whether she did or not.

[knightflyte]

@OreadNYC Didn't Oksana make up for the mis-landing by doing another sow cow or lutz jump toward the end of her routine? I think I remember the commentators remarking that one of those moves wasn't originally in the performance.

I thought Kerrigan did a great job, but lacked the grace and sophistication of Oksana. I think Kerrigan had a bit of the sympathy vote because of the knee injury... not that she wasn't great, just not as good as Baiul

[OreadNYC]

I'm very glad someone posted this. This will always out in my mind as one of the best and most memorable Olympic figure skating performances, and she truly deserved the gold medal. I remember that my mother and I disagreed about that. She thought that Nancy Kerrigan should have been awarded the gold medal instead of the silver because the landing on one of Oksana Baiul's jumps wasn't perfect, but I didn't see nearly as much creativity and originality in Kerrigan's program as there was here.

[siuwed]

This Woman is so frickin' HOT.. Beautiful!

[Chubbolisa]

Very beautiful, though I think The Swan is better for ballerinas

[themarkysim]

dying swan