Oksana Grishuk

Oksana (Pasha) Vladimirovna Grishuk (Оксана (Паша) Владимировна Грищук, Оксана (Пашу) Володимирівна Грищук; born 17 March 1972) is a Russian former competitive ice dancer.

They moved to Moscow in 1980.

In 1987, they won the silver medal at the World Junior Championships.

The following year, they won gold at the event, as well as the Soviet Championships.

They competed one more season and won bronze at the Grand Prix International de Paris (now known as Trophée Eric Bompard).

With previous partner Alexandr Chichkov, she is the 1988 World Junior champion.

The skater's name is most commonly romanized as Oksana Grishuk but other variations exist.

The Cyrillic shcha ("щ") may be transliterated as 'sh' to reflect modern Russian pronunciation or, alternatively, as 'shch' (scholarly šč) to reflect the older pronunciation, which is still common in Ukrainian.

Grishuk studied at the Sport University of Moscow from 1988 to 1992.

She is best known for her partnership with Evgeni Platov from 1989 to 1998.

He retired in the summer of 1989 due to injury.

Grishuk was invited to join Natalia Dubova's group where she was partnered with Evgeni Platov.

They trained in Moscow.

Three months later, in December 1989, they won the bronze medal at the Soviet Championships.

In the early 1990s, her surname sometimes appeared erroneously as Gritschuk.

Grishuk was born in Odessa (Odesa), Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union.

Her father abandoned the family before she was one.

Her mother was an economic engineer.

They were fifth in their World Championship debut in 1990.

Their first European and World medals, both bronze, came at the 1992 European Championships and 1992 World Championships.

Due to tensions between Grishuk and Maya Usova in the summer of 1992, Grishuk left the group.

Dubova found a new partner for Platov while Grishuk briefly searched for a new partner in Germany before returning to Moscow and her previous coach, Natalia Linichuk.

Platov decided not to follow Dubova and re-teamed with Grishuk in the fall of 1992.

During the 1992–93 season, Grishuk and Platov won European and World silver medals.

In 1993–94, they won silver at the European Championships.

With Platov, she is a two-time Olympic champion (1994, 1998), four-time World champion (1994–1997), and three-time European champion (1996–1998).

She moved from Moscow to Newark, Delaware in 1994 and then to Marlborough, Massachusetts in 1996.

She currently resides in Los Angeles, California with her daughter, Skyler Marie Grace Grishuk.

Grishuk began skating at the age of four.

After moving to Moscow, she was turned away by several clubs before a coach finally accepted her.

She began training under Natalia Linichuk at the age of 12.

Grishuk initially competed with Alexandr Chichkov for the Soviet Union.

They won their first Olympic title at the 1994 Olympics.

They ended the season with their first World title at the 1994 World Championships.

They then left Russia and moved with Linichuk to Newark, Delaware for better training and living conditions.

Grishuk and Platov missed most of 1994–95 due to injury but returned to win the 1995 World Championships.

They had a full season in 1995–96 and won another set of European and World titles.

In 1996, Grishuk and Platov split from Linichuk and moved to Tatiana Tarasova in Marlborough, Massachusetts.

Injury kept them out of competition in the first half of the 1996–97 season but they returned to win their second European and fourth World title.

In September 1997, she changed her first name to Pasha after being repeatedly confused with Oksana Baiul, but later went back to Oksana.