TON YA HARDING
How Olympic figure skating and true crime combined to inspire new Oscar-nominated film I, Tonya
The New York Times called it, “One of the biggest scandals in American sports history”. An incredible truecrime saga of violence and an attempted cover-up that touches on issues of class snobbery, domestic abuse and the vicious dog-eat-dog world of figure skating, now it’s the basis for Oscar-nominated film I, Tonya. This is the story of how Tonya Harding, played brilliantly in the movie by Margot Robbie, went from making ice-skating history in 1991 aged just 21 years old, to being a global hate-figure just three years later, when she was banned for life from the US Figure Skating Association after being the subject of a criminal investigation by the FBI.
So, where did it go so wrong for Harding just when it looked like all her dreams were coming true? Here’s the inside story…
QUEEN OF THE TRIPLE AXEL
Tonya Harding began skating when she was three years old in her home town of Portland, Oregon, and her ruthless mother Lavona (portrayed in the film by Oscar-nominated Allison Janney as a mean old bat) was pushing her to compete even at that young age. Lavona hooked her up with coach Diane Rawlinson, who trained Tonya throughout her childhood and teen years, right up to the historic moment in 1991, when Harding became the first woman to complete a triple axel [a jump with three-anda-half rotations) in international competition. Tonya became world famous – an incredible achievement for a young woman growing up in a dirt-poor home where she was allegedly physically abused from a young age by her mother, and then by her husband – although both deny the violence depicted in the movie.
THE KERRIGAN SCANDAL
During Harding’s triple axel-based glory years of her early 20s, she was on quite friendly terms with her closest competitor on the US figure skating scene, Nancy Kerrigan. But three years later, in the build-up to the Winter Olympics when both skaters were vying to represent their country, Kerrigan was attacked after a practice session by a seemingly random man wielding a metal baton, hitting her above her knee on her right leg. She had to withdraw from the national championship, which Harding then won.
By the time the Olympics arrived, Kerrigan had recovered enough from her injury to take part alongside Harding. The broadcast of the women’s figure skating event was watched by an astonishing 126.5 million viewers, making it the fourth-largest prime-time audience in US TV history.
After all that, both Harding and Kerrigan were beaten by Ukrainian Oksana Baiul. But then it turned out the man who assaulted Kerrigan had been hired by Tonya’s ex-husband Jeff Gillooly – and all hell broke loose.
A DISGRACED FIGURE
The extent to which Tonya knew about the plot to injure her rival is fiercely contested. Recently, in interviews tied to the release of the film, Harding has admitted she “knew something was up”, and overheard Gillooly and his mate Shawn Eckhardt, an eccentric conspiracy theorist, talking about “taking someone out” to make sure Harding won her place on the Olympic team. But the media at the time fully blamed Harding for the plot, as did the US Skating Association. Gillooly and his fellow conspirators spent time in jail for the attack, while Tonya herself pleaded guilty to “conspiring to hinder prosecution” of the attackers, but escaped imprisonment.
Now, Harding, 47, who briefly became a professional boxer and reality TV star after the end of her skating career, is famous all over again.
And Margot Robbie might just win an Oscar for portraying her. ■
I, Tonya is in cinemas from 23 February