Published: Sunday, December 20, 2009
Tonya and Nancy go to Norway
If you find the media frenzy surrounding Tiger Woods’ serial infidelities a bit much, trust me on this: it’s a neighborhood carnival compared with the five-ring Olympic circus that was Tonya Harding vs. Nancy Kerrigan at the 1994 Lillehammer Games.
The U.S. Olympic Committee had tried to keep that circus from ever reaching Norway. After the FBI arrested Tonya’s ex-husband Jeff Gillooly and some of the couple’s low-life pals for the vicious knee-whacking of Kerrigan before the national championships, the USOC booted Harding off the Olympic team.
There was just one problem. Though Gillooly insisted that Harding was a prime schemer, there was little proof. In fact, Harding would eventually be convicted only of hindering the investigation. In the interim, there was no way some suits were going to stop a gal who was already boasting how she would “whip Nancy’s butt.”
Tonya did like any red-blooded American girl — at least the kind who posed for videos in topless wedding gowns — when somebody stands in the way of your dreams. She sued — for a tidy $25 million. The bureaucratic guardians of Olympic rectitude folded like an accordion. And Harding was Norway bound.
There were a few hundred reporters and photographers waiting, their eyes and cameras pressed against the airport glass, when the SAS jet carrying Harding landed in Oslo. But a van was waiting on the tarmac, enabling Harding to escape without an encounter. Still, she did offer up a coquettish wave to the media troops trapped inside.
The next day some 700 of us were trapped again — for four sweaty hours, crammed onto a creaky, wooden platform above a small, practice rink — waiting for Harding and Kerrigan’s practice session. There were some 150 security guards deployed around the arena, about four times the usual contingent after death threats had been received against both skaters.
About the only thing missing, as Sports Illustrated’s Steve Rushin noted, was a ring announcer bellowing, “Let’s get ready to rumble!” But there was no rumble, indeed no nothing. They two women didn’t talk, barely exchanged a glance and kept well out of range of each other through the session. Tonya, clearly reveling in her center-stage role, exited with a “thumbs up” sign.
Kerrigan, a Boston beauty whose refined skating style contrasted with Harding’s fiery athleticism, was viewed as somewhat frail of psyche. She had gone to the world championships a year earlier as the gold-medal favorite and was in first place after her first performance. But she skated the finale in a total daze and stumbled all the way to fifth place. Now she not only had to rebound from that flop, but to bounce back as well from the physical and psychic damage of a nightmarish crime.
Yet Kerrigan had showed up, rather pointedly, in the same white, lacy outfit she wore in Detroit when she was attacked. Her smile was as big and appeared every bit as genuine as Harding’s. Despite being forced to share the ice and the limelight with a woman whom she regarded as a menace, Kerrigan looked both relaxed and confident. Had we perhaps underestimated her moxie?
More than 45 million Americans would tune in to find out; the showdown between Tonya and Nancy drew the second largest TV audience ever (behind only the M*A*S*H finale).
Tonya’s turn was — no surprise — bizarre. After botching her first jump, she stopped skating and began crying. She then showed the judges a broken skate lace. Harding had long used tricks — broken laces, wobbly blades, unsnapped dresses — to demand second chances. Regardless, she was no longer capable of contending and finished 8th. She exited to a smattering of applause and headed off into the tawdry and desperate world — wrestling shows, boxing matches, tone-deaf rock bands, sex tapes — of celebrity has-beens.
By contrast, Kerrigan’s farewell performance was a career best, a testament to her remarkable fortitude throughout the ordeal. But in a controversial decision, she lost the gold medal — by the slimmest possible margin — to a waifish Ukrainian teen, Oksana Baiul, who was less technically adept, but more artful.
It seemed Kerrigan couldn’t catch a break. A TV microphone would pick up some mild sarcasm about Baiul’s backstage waterfall of tears and she found herself cast as a sore loser. Kerrigan would make a similar mistake a few days later during a Disney World parade — appearing to suggest it was a Mickey Mouse affair rather than a swell party — and got castigated as an ingrate.
None of it was remotely kind or fair. After all Nancy had endured, it seemed like we ganged up and whacked her again.
The U.S. Olympic Committee had tried to keep that circus from ever reaching Norway. After the FBI arrested Tonya’s ex-husband Jeff Gillooly and some of the couple’s low-life pals for the vicious knee-whacking of Kerrigan before the national championships, the USOC booted Harding off the Olympic team.
There was just one problem. Though Gillooly insisted that Harding was a prime schemer, there was little proof. In fact, Harding would eventually be convicted only of hindering the investigation. In the interim, there was no way some suits were going to stop a gal who was already boasting how she would “whip Nancy’s butt.”
Tonya did like any red-blooded American girl — at least the kind who posed for videos in topless wedding gowns — when somebody stands in the way of your dreams. She sued — for a tidy $25 million. The bureaucratic guardians of Olympic rectitude folded like an accordion. And Harding was Norway bound.
There were a few hundred reporters and photographers waiting, their eyes and cameras pressed against the airport glass, when the SAS jet carrying Harding landed in Oslo. But a van was waiting on the tarmac, enabling Harding to escape without an encounter. Still, she did offer up a coquettish wave to the media troops trapped inside.
The next day some 700 of us were trapped again — for four sweaty hours, crammed onto a creaky, wooden platform above a small, practice rink — waiting for Harding and Kerrigan’s practice session. There were some 150 security guards deployed around the arena, about four times the usual contingent after death threats had been received against both skaters.
About the only thing missing, as Sports Illustrated’s Steve Rushin noted, was a ring announcer bellowing, “Let’s get ready to rumble!” But there was no rumble, indeed no nothing. They two women didn’t talk, barely exchanged a glance and kept well out of range of each other through the session. Tonya, clearly reveling in her center-stage role, exited with a “thumbs up” sign.
Kerrigan, a Boston beauty whose refined skating style contrasted with Harding’s fiery athleticism, was viewed as somewhat frail of psyche. She had gone to the world championships a year earlier as the gold-medal favorite and was in first place after her first performance. But she skated the finale in a total daze and stumbled all the way to fifth place. Now she not only had to rebound from that flop, but to bounce back as well from the physical and psychic damage of a nightmarish crime.
Yet Kerrigan had showed up, rather pointedly, in the same white, lacy outfit she wore in Detroit when she was attacked. Her smile was as big and appeared every bit as genuine as Harding’s. Despite being forced to share the ice and the limelight with a woman whom she regarded as a menace, Kerrigan looked both relaxed and confident. Had we perhaps underestimated her moxie?
More than 45 million Americans would tune in to find out; the showdown between Tonya and Nancy drew the second largest TV audience ever (behind only the M*A*S*H finale).
Tonya’s turn was — no surprise — bizarre. After botching her first jump, she stopped skating and began crying. She then showed the judges a broken skate lace. Harding had long used tricks — broken laces, wobbly blades, unsnapped dresses — to demand second chances. Regardless, she was no longer capable of contending and finished 8th. She exited to a smattering of applause and headed off into the tawdry and desperate world — wrestling shows, boxing matches, tone-deaf rock bands, sex tapes — of celebrity has-beens.
By contrast, Kerrigan’s farewell performance was a career best, a testament to her remarkable fortitude throughout the ordeal. But in a controversial decision, she lost the gold medal — by the slimmest possible margin — to a waifish Ukrainian teen, Oksana Baiul, who was less technically adept, but more artful.
It seemed Kerrigan couldn’t catch a break. A TV microphone would pick up some mild sarcasm about Baiul’s backstage waterfall of tears and she found herself cast as a sore loser. Kerrigan would make a similar mistake a few days later during a Disney World parade — appearing to suggest it was a Mickey Mouse affair rather than a swell party — and got castigated as an ingrate.
None of it was remotely kind or fair. After all Nancy had endured, it seemed like we ganged up and whacked her again.
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