Viktor Vasyliovych Petrenko is a Ukrainian former competitive figure skater who represented the Soviet Union, the Unified Team, and Ukraine during his career.
32 Facts About Viktor Petrenko
2.
Viktor Petrenko is the 1992 Olympic Champion for the Unified Team.
3.
Viktor Petrenko was born in Odesa, Ukrainian SSR, the first of two sons born to engineers Tamara and Vasyl Petrenko.
4.
The Viktor Petrenko family spoke Russian, which had become dominant in Odesa.
5.
Viktor Petrenko attended a Russian-speaking school where he chose to study English as a foreign language.
6.
Viktor Petrenko was often sick as a young child, and doctors suggested to his parents that they put him in a sport in order to improve his strength and stamina.
7.
Viktor Petrenko won the bronze medal at the 1988 Olympic Games, and became one of the youngest male figure skating Olympic medalists.
8.
Viktor Petrenko won the bronze medal at the 1988 World Figure Skating Championships.
9.
Viktor Petrenko won his first two European Championships in 1990 and 1991.
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Viktor Petrenko was frustrated in trying to win a World title.
11.
Viktor Petrenko won the short program at both the 1990 and 1991 World Figure Skating Championships, but his mistakes in the long program dropped him to silver both times.
12.
Viktor Petrenko skated a strong program, only stepping out of a triple loop, and omitting a planned triple axel-triple toe which he turned into a triple-double.
13.
Viktor Petrenko's skate was not his best, and some contested his win.
14.
Viktor Petrenko used the same free program for the 3rd straight year, with his polish and familiarity gaining high marks for the artistic strength of the program.
15.
Viktor Petrenko turned professional following his Olympic win, moving to Las Vegas, Nevada.
16.
Viktor Petrenko defeated another returning competitor, Brian Boitano, to win Skate America with a commanding 8-triple long program.
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Viktor Petrenko won his third European Championships in January 1994, competing for the first time for the independent nation of Ukraine.
18.
Viktor Petrenko represented his homeland at the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics.
19.
Viktor Petrenko had many successes, including winning the prestigious Challenge of Champions event three times.
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Viktor Petrenko failed to win the other major professional event, the Landover World Professional Skating Championships, and never placed higher than 3rd.
21.
In 1992, Viktor Petrenko had convinced his coach Galina Zmievskaya to take in Oksana Baiul, a 14-year-old Ukrainian orphan who was talented in skating.
22.
That year Viktor Petrenko married Zmievskaya's oldest daughter, Nina Milken, on 19 June 1992.
23.
Zmievskaya and Vladimir Viktor Petrenko joined the coaching staff at the new International Skating Center of Connecticut.
24.
In 1996 Viktor Petrenko performed as the Scarecrow for the CBS television special The Wizard of Oz on Ice.
25.
In March 2001, Petrenko organized the Viktory for Kids ice show in Simsbury, Connecticut.
26.
Viktor Petrenko invited celebrity friends from the international figure skating community to perform in order to raise public awareness and funds for the thousands of children still being affected by elevated radiation levels from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster that had occurred in his Ukrainian homeland fifteen years earlier.
27.
In October 2003, Petrenko organized a second "Viktory for Kids" show, this time in Danbury, Connecticut.
28.
In January 2004, Viktor Petrenko was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence after crashing his car into a utility pole in Connecticut and refusing to take a breathalyzer test.
29.
Viktor Petrenko's record was cleared after he completed an adult alcohol education program.
30.
Viktor Petrenko toured as a performing skater with the US company of Champions on Ice for a record twenty seasons, until COI went out of business after the 2007 season.
31.
Viktor Petrenko is an ISU Technical Specialist for Ukraine and was the Assistant Technical Specialist for the men's event at the 2006 Winter Olympics.
32.
In 2022, amidst Ukraine's ongoing war against Russia, Viktor Petrenko was fired from his post as vice president of the Ukrainian Figure Skating Federation and expelled from the organization for taking part in an event in Russia that was organized by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov's wife, Tatyana Navka.