Viktor Petrenko

Viktor Petrenko
nation	Soviet Union United Team Ukraine
birthday	June 27, 1969
place of birth	Odessa,  Soviet Union
Career
discipline	Single run
Trainer	Halyna Smijewska
End of career	1994
Medal table
Olympic medals 1 × 0 × 1 × World Cup medals 1 × 2 × 1 × EM medals 3 × 1 × 2 ×
winter Olympics bronze Calgary 1988 Men's gold Albertville 1992 Men's  World figure skating championships bronze Budapest 1988 Men's silver Halifax 1990 Men's silver Munich 1991 Men's gold Oakland 1992 Men's  European figure skating championships bronze Sarajevo 1987 Men's bronze Prague 1988 Men's gold Leningrad 1990 Men's gold Sofia 1991 Men's silver Lausanne 1992 Men's gold Copenhagen 1994 Men's

Viktor Petrenko ( Ukrainian Віктор Петренко , Russian Виктор Васильевич Петренко / Victor Vasilievich Petrenko, English Viktor Petrenko ; * 27. June 1969 in Odessa , Ukrainian SSR , Soviet Union ) is a former Ukrainian figure skaters , where the first for the Soviet Union, according to their decay for United team and finally started for Ukraine in a single run . He is the Olympic champion of 1992 , the world champion of 1992 and the European Champion of 1990 , 1991 and 1994 .

biography

Petrenko was born in Odessa as the first of two sons to the engineer couple Tamara and Vasili. His younger brother Vladimir was also a figure skater and became Junior World Champion in 1986 . Petrenko began figure skating at the age of five on the advice of a doctor who advised his parents to let him play sports because of Viktor's poor health. When he was ten years old, he was discovered by the coach Halyna Smijewska , who coached him throughout his amateur career.

In 1984 Petrenko became World Junior Champion . At the 1988 Olympic Games in Calgary , he finished third. In 1990 , 1991 and 1994 he was European champion, 1992 world champion. The high point of his career was winning the 1992 Olympic Games in Albertville . He performed his freestyle to music by Thomas (Raymond), Chopin (waltz) and Verdi (Sicilian Vespers).

His victories at the World Championships and the Olympic Games fell during the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union . Therefore, in the result lists, the country is given as CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States).

After his Olympic victory in 1992, he switched to the professionals, but was reamateurised in 1994 to start at the Olympic Winter Games in Lillehammer for the Ukraine . Here he was only ninth in the short program and could only work his way up to fourth place in the final freestyle, so that he missed a medal rank.

In 1992, Petrenko convinced his trainer to take in and train 14-year-old orphan Oksana Bajul , paying for the costs. Bajul later became world and Olympic champion. On June 19, 1992, Petrenko married Nina Melnick, the daughter of his trainer Halyna Smijewska. The couple has a daughter Victoria (born July 21, 1997). After the 1994 Olympics, Petrenko, his wife, mother-in-law, brother and Bajul left Ukraine for Simsbury , Connecticut, where they were invited to work as coaches. In 2001, Petrenko organized an ice show for children to raise money for children suffering from the damage caused by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster . Among other things, the money was used to finance an intensive care unit in Odessa with the latest technological equipment. In 2005 the Petrenkos moved to Wayne , where Wiktor and his mother-in-law work as a trainer in the Ice Vault Area. His most famous students there were Johnny Weir and Stéphane Lambiel . Viktor Petrenko appeared on Champions on Ice for a record twenty seasons . Today he works as a technical specialist at the ISU and sits on the Presidium of the Ukrainian Figure Skating Federation.

Results

Competition / year	1984	1985	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994
winter Olympics					3.				1.		4th
World championships		9.	5.	6th	3.	6th	2.	2.	1.
European championships		6th	4th	3.	3.		1.	1.	2.		1.
Junior World Championships	1.
Soviet championships	3.		2.	2.			2.	1.	3.
Ukrainian championships											1.

Web links

• Viktor Petrenko in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )