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Oksana Baiul enters alcohol rehab
Shelly Schultz, the vice president of the William Morris Agency and a spokesman for the skater, confirmed today that the Baiul volunteered last weekto enter a center founded by Alcoholics Anonymous.
The 20-year-old skater's drinking problem was first disclosed last year after a drunken-driving wreck in Connecticut.
"This is a positive move for her and by her," Schultz said by phone from his New York office.
Schultz declined to say where Baiul was being treated. She previously underwent a similar program in New Hampshire as part of a court order related to her Jan. 12, 1997, car crash.
Baiul, once a wisp of a skater who soared to the gold medal for Ukraine at the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics, is part of the Champions on Ice tour of 70 cities. She is expected to resume her tour schedule once her rehabilitation is complete.
Schultz said the rehab program is tailored to individual needs and will last about a month.
"She's just focusing on her program and we're not bothering her," he said.
Baiul was going close to 100 mph when she drove off a country road in Connecticut, on her way home after a night of drinking in Hartford. She was too young to legally drink at the time, and well over Connecticut's legal blood-alcohol limit.
Baiul was initially charged with reckless and drunken driving, but through a deal with prosecutors pleaded no-contest to a reduced charge of traveling unreasonably fast, and fined $90 on that count.
Under terms of the deal, Baiul was granted admission into an alcohol education program and ordered to perform 25 hours of community service. If she completes both within a year of the ruling, the drunken-driving charge will be dropped.
In an interview earlier this year, Baiul said her heavy drinking began five months before the car accident.
Baiul currently lives outside of Boston. She moved there last fall after selling her rambling home in the Hartford suburb of Simsbury, where a handful of fellow Ukrainian skaters train.