VANCOUVER, Wash. – A 27-year-old man has been charged with assault after a tussle with figure skater-turned-boxer Tonya Harding.
Christopher Nolan told deputies she threw him to the gravel and bit his finger when he said she’d had too much to drink. Nolan pleaded not guilty Monday in Clark County District Court and was released on his own recognizance.
Harding told deputies the scrap was in the kitchen of the house they shared, not the driveway, and that it was a cat, not she, who scratched Nolan’s finger.
Initially, Harding, 34, called 911 and said she was attacked by two masked men who came to her home and assaulted her before she could escape.
Nolan was ordered to stay away from Harding and to avoid alcohol.
Nolan described the two as roommates. She said he was her boyfriend.
Harding was banned for life from competitive figure skating after her former husband hired a hit man to club Harding’s rival Nancy Kerrigan with a baton as Kerrigan left the ice during practice at the 1994 U.S. championships in Detroit.
The attack prevented Kerrigan from competing, but she recovered to win a silver medal at the 1994 Olympic games in Lillehammer, Norway, a few weeks later. Harding, then from Portland, Ore., finished out of the running.
More recently, Harding tried her hand at professional boxing, with mixed success.
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