Galina Zmievskaya

Galina Yakovlevna Zmievskaya (born 1952) is a figure skating coach, formerly based in Odessa, Ukraine. Her students have included Olympic champions Viktor Petrenko and Oksana Baiul, World Junior champion Vladimir Petrenko, U.S. national champion Scott Davis, and Italian champion Silvia Fontana. She also worked with Viacheslav Zagorodniuk and Takeshi Honda early in their careers. She briefly coached Georgian skater Elene Gedevanishvili in early 2007. [ [http://web.icenetwork.com/skaters/detail.jsp?id=100407&mode=I icenetwork.com Skaters: Elene Gedevanishvili Retrieved May 15, 2008] ] She began coaching American skater Johnny Weir in the summer of 2007 [ [http://www.ifsmagazine.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=431&pid=612&st=0&#entry612 International Figure Skating, June 15, 2007: "New Coach For Johnny Weir: Three-Time U.S. Men’s Champion to Train With Galina Zmievskaya"] ] and in June 2008 Swiss skater Stephane Lambiel became her pupil, as well. [ [http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news_digest/Lambiel_makes_coach_swap_to_raise_stakes.html?siteSect=104&sid=9183262&cKey=1212759918000&ty=nd Lambiel Makes Coach Swap to Raise Stakes, June 6, 2008] ]

In addition to coaching Oksana Baiul, Zmievskaya acted as her guardian following the death of her mother. Zmievskaya's older daughter, Nina, is married to Viktor Petrenko [Sports Illustrated, February 7, 1994: Volume 80, Issue 5, p. 78 "Window on the World: Having Triumphed Over Tragedy, Oksana Baiul Eyes the Games"] and has choreographed for many of Zmievskaya's students. She has a second daughter, also named Galina and known as Galya. Zmievskaya's husband, Nikolai, was a building contractor in Odessa. [Life Magazine, June 1994: Vol. 17, Issue 6, p. 72 "Oksana: Happy at Last"]

Following Baiul's win at the 1994 Winter Olympics, Zmievskaya moved to Simsbury, Connecticut, where she coached for a decade at the International Skating Center of Connecticut [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0CE3D9133DF931A35751C0A961958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all New York Times, February 2, 1997: "When Olympic Champions Moved In, They Put Simsbury on the World Map"] ] before relocating to Wayne, New Jersey in 2005 along with her daughter Nina and son-in-law Viktor Petrenko to coach at Ice Vault Arena. [ [http://www.mceskating.com/viktortrain.shtml Petrenko Brings Added Prestige to Ice Vault] ]

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