End of the Winter's Tale

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The major disappointment was France's Surya Bonaly, who ended in fourth place. Her mighty jumps gave a vitamin shot to the proceedings, but she tired and fell out of a leap or two near the end. As for Katarina Witt, the 1988 gold-medal winner, she placed seventh -- again, no thanks to the judges. She had suffered through months of jeering that she was returning to competition for frivolous reasons. But her long program was the best choreographed and most stylish of the contest. Unlike the jump-and-spin fests offered by most contestants, hers had varied pacing and intricate, pleasing footwork. She deserved better than the mediocre marks she received.

Aside from numerous falls -- almost a precondition of competition now that triple jumps are mandatory -- it was in general a well-skated event. And, if the public does not take its resentment of inscrutable scoring out on her, the sport may have a new idol in Baiul. Ballet fans who cross over to watch skating already adore her. They love her enormously expressive arms and the unusual flexibility of her back and hips. She is that rare athlete who is also an artist, without doubt the most musical skater to appear in a long time. Like the very best dancers -- say, Suzanne Farrell or Kyra Nichols -- she gives the impression that the melody flows from her body rather than that she ( is reacting to the music.

She has shot onto the scene like a comet. In her first ever international competition, she won last year's world championships in Prague. And this is, of course, her first Olympics. But her life must change. She came up the hard way. Her childhood will shortly be folklore: her father disappeared from Dnepropetrovsk when she was two; her mother died at 36 of cancer when Oksana was 13, leaving the child without blood relations to turn to. Her coach was the next to vanish -- emigrating to Canada to seek a better future than struggling Ukraine could offer. It was then that Zmievskaya took over.

In Odessa Baiul skates at a rink where the ice is often like spring mush. She shares a little room with her coach's younger daughter, her best friend. Her idol is Rudolf Nureyev, whose pictures adorn the walls. Zmievskaya says her prize pupil "doesn't know what a million dollars is. All she knows is that she needs 10 fantiki ((candy wrappers)) to buy an ice cream."

That phase of an already crowded life is definitively over. Crowds love Baiul, and she loves them. Anyone with something to sell will be just as smitten. In the past, Zmievskaya has turned aside suggestions that her extended family move to the comforts of the West because they lacked the money for training and living expenses. Now they will probably spend at least part of the year outside Ukraine.

Who knows how Baiul will handle her new celebrity? She dotes on a stuffed rabbit given to her by another idol, skater Jill Trenary. She is a fountain of emotion, weeping at good news or bad. Her American agent, Michael Rosenberg, is exultant at the gold. Asked about his strategy for his young client, he says, "I see her as the next Judy Garland." For the coming phase, Baiul will need all the determination that brought her so far so fast, because that statement is enough to make you weep.