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Tonya Harding was from a poor family, she wore handmade clothes, had to
walk in the morning to take a shower, and she had an abusive mother. Her mother
beat her with a hairbrush in public, was an alcoholic, and used foul language, but she
was also an articulate woman, making her a dangerous person in Tonyas life. Tonya
didnt have any friends or boyfriends; she discovered ice-skating and that became
her life. She would skate circles around local skating star and coach Diane
Rawlinson, to try and convince her to give her private lessons. She would wake up,
go to the rink, go to school, come home from school, and then go to the rink. The rink
was her relief from the harsh realities of the life that she was living, and the
competition fueled her desire to win and to make it to the Olympics. Tonya didnt fit
the typical skater mold, but had raw power and used that instead of grace to blow
her competitors off the ice. Before the 92 Olympics she became the first female
figure skater to land the triple axel, one of the hardest jumps in skating. If the
Olympics had been in 91 she would have made it, she would have been
untouchable, but they werent.
Nancy Kerrigan was from a lower to middle class family; she was one of three
children, and she was the only girl. She would tag along with her brothers to the ice
rink when they went to play hockey, and soon discovered her passion for skating
there. She was inspired by Olympic Figure Skating and poured herself into her
practices, getting up at 4:00 in the morning before school to go to the rink. Her
parents paid a lot for her practices, and her parents were working multiple jobs to
pay for her skating, and she wanted to make her parents proud. She used her poise
and elegance to outperform her competitors. She had showed that from an early age
she was a strong jumper. She used that in her performances along with her grace
and she was a force to be reckoned with.
These two women had very different approaches to figure skating, both were
very talented, and they both made it far. In January 1994 at the US Figure Skating
Championships in Detroit Michigan, where there was the chance to make it onto the
Olympic Team, Nancy Kerrigan was hit in the knee with a metal, collapsible, baton,
which seriously bruised her kneecap and quadriceps tendon, and prevented her
from participating during the Championships. Her cries of Why me? Why now?
rang throughout television, first she was looked upon with concern but soon the
television took a mocking view even calling her cries of pain and desperation
whining. The search for the infamous attacker began.
Tonya Harding, without her biggest competitor, aced her performance, and
was accepted onto the Olympic team. She had earned her spot with hard work and
determination, but the fingers started pointing at her once her husband, Jeff Gillooly,
had been taken into custody along with his three accomplices. Tonya would do
anything to win, and everybody knew that, but did that mean that she was guilty?
After Nancy was fully healed, she was also granted a spot on the US Olympic team,
and the biggest show down in figure skating, and possibly Olympic history, would
begin soon thereafter.
At the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics, Tonya had trouble with her skates before
her performance, got on the ice late, and when she started her routine, after
attempting her first jump she broke out in tears and skated over to the judges to
explain. Her shoelace had broken along with part of her skate, and she was put
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closer to the end of the program, forcing one of her other competitors to take the ice
in a hurry. People crowded around Tonya trying to fix her skate in the limited time
that she had until she had to get back on the ice.
Nancy Kerrigan had her performance and was as close to flawless as it gets.
She got amazing marks and finished second to Oksana Baiul of the Ukraine by 0.1
points. Tonya Harding was not able to properly fix her skate and came in at a
disappointing eighth amongst a whirlwind of accusation. The competition was never
able to live up to its height.
After the Olympics, Tonya Harding admitted to knowing about the crime and
was charged with hindering prosecution, she was banned from the figure skating
world, what she had worked for her entire life, and was left with nothing, absolutely
nothing. After a while she realized that she had to make some money somehow, and
when she heard about celebrity boxing, she found her chance. She was a hit, and she
was accepted into the boxing world. She traded in her sequins and skates for gloves
and a mouth guard; she became Tonya Harding, the bad girl of boxing. She still
boxes to this day forth, and she wakes up knowing she has a purpose even after her
husband and her mother continuously put her down.
Nancy Kerrigan retired after the Olympics and married her agent Jerry
Solomon on September 9, 1995; they have three children, Matthew, Brian, and
Nicole, and another child from the second of his two earlier marriages. Her father
died at age 70 on January 24, 2010, and her brother was accused of strangling him
while drunk, Nancy went to court with him to defend him. She now lives in
Lynnfield, Massachusetts with her three children and her husband.