Viktor Petrenko

Viktor Petrenko was born in Odesa, Ukrainian SSR, the first of two sons born to engineers Tamara and Vasyl Petrenko. They both got involved in ice skating, training and competing from a young age. His younger brother Vladimir Petrenko also became a competitive skater and the 1986 World Junior champion.[1]

The Petrenko family spoke Russian, which had become dominant in Odesa. It was also a means of inter-ethnic communication throughout the USSR. Viktor Petrenko attended a Russian-speaking school where he chose to study English as a foreign language. Because Ukrainian was not used in his family or his school, he never learned to speak the native language of his country fluently.

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. When he was five years old, they took him to the local ice rink and started him in figure skating. At the age of nine, his talent was noticed by Ukrainian figure skating coach Galina Zmievskaya and she took him on as a pupil at Spartak in Odesa.[2]

After 1994 Petrenko competed as a professional. He had many successes, including winning the prestigious Challenge of Champions event three times. It is considered the top professional event. He failed to win the other major professional event, the Landover World Professional Skating Championships, and never placed higher than 3rd.

In 1992, Petrenko had convinced his coach Galina Zmievskaya to take in Oksana Baiul, a 14-year-old Ukrainian orphan who was talented in skating. The coach became both her guardian and coach, having Baiul live with her. Petrenko covered Baiul's expenses. With their guidance, Baiul won the 1993 World Figure Skating Championship and the gold medal at the 1994 Olympic Games.[11][12]

That year Petrenko married Zmievskaya's oldest daughter, Nina Milken, on 19 June 1992. Their daughter Victoria was born on 21 July 1997.

After the 1994 Winter Olympics, Petrenko and Nina, Zmievskaya, Baiul and Viktor's brother Vladimir all left Ukraine and moved to Simsbury, Connecticut, United States. Petrenko and Baiul were invited to train for competition. Zmievskaya and Vladimir Petrenko joined the coaching staff at the new International Skating Center of Connecticut.[13]

Petrenko skates at an exhibition program at the 2002 Champions on Ice show in Buffalo, New York

In 1996 Petrenko performed as the Scarecrow for the CBS television special The Wizard of Oz on Ice. In March 2001, Petrenko organized the Viktory for Kids ice show in Simsbury, Connecticut. He 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. $108,000 was raised, and later that year was used to open The Viktor Petrenko Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in Odesa, with state-of-the-art medical technology.[14]

In October 2003, Petrenko organized a second "Viktory for Kids" show, this time in Danbury, Connecticut. In addition to Petrenko, the show included Olympic champions Ekaterina Gordeeva (with her daughter, Daria Grinkova [Petrenko's goddaughter]), Ilia Kulik, Evgeni Plushenko, Brian Boitano, and Oksana Kazakova / Artur Dimitriev.

In January 2004, Petrenko was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence (DUI) after crashing his car into a utility pole in Connecticut and refusing to take a breathalyzer test.[15] His record was cleared after he completed an adult alcohol education program.[16]

Petrenko, wife Nina and mother-in-law Zmievskaya left the International Skating Center of Connecticut in 2005 and moved to New Jersey, where they began coaching together at the Ice Vault Arena in Wayne.[17] They have coached American men's figure skater Johnny Weir since the summer of 2007.[18]

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.[19][20] He is an ISU Technical Specialist for Ukraine[21] and was the Assistant Technical Specialist for the men's event at the 2006 Winter Olympics.[22][23] In June 2008, he was elected to the Presidium of the Ukrainian Figure Skating Federation.[24]

In 2022, amidst Russia's ongoing full scale invasion of Ukraine, Petrenko was fired from his post as vice president of the Ukrainian Figure Skating Federation (UFFK) 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.[25]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Viktor Petrenko.

• Athlete Profile - Petrenko
• Champions on Ice
• Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Viktor Petrenko". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 30 June 2009.