Tonya Harding

Tonya Harding’s athletic ability made her a two-time national champion; her involvement in a heinous attack on a rival made her possibly the most infamous athlete in American figure skating history.

Skating history could have remembered Harding as the first American woman to land the incredibly difficult triple axel in competition, which she did during the 1991 United States Figure Skating Championships. Instead, Harding is primarily known for a 1994 scandal in which her former husband and accomplices were convicted for their roles in a brutal attack on fellow skater Nancy Kerrigan, Harding’s main nemesis in the early 1990s. Kerrigan was clubbed on the knee as she left the ice after a practice during the U.S. championships—just six weeks before the 1994 Olympic Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway. Harding pleaded guilty to conspiring to hinder prosecution of the attack and was sentenced to three years of probation, as well as $160,000 in fines and charitable contributions.

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7 Unsportsmanlike Athletes: Tonya Harding: The whack heard ’round the world

Early life

Harding was raised in Multnomah and Clackamas counties, Oregon, by parents LaVona Golden and Al Harding. She began skating at the age of three and soon showed talent at the sport. Though her parents could hardly afford the expensive training and costuming expected of a professional figure skater, they raised money in various ways, such as collecting cans and bottles, and LaVona sewed Harding’s sequined costumes herself.

Rise in figure skating ranks and reputation

Harding dropped out of high school to pursue skating and, at the age of 16, finished sixth at the 1986 United States Figure Skating Championships. The following year she finished second at Skate America, where she showcased her soon-to-be-signature jumps, including the triple axel. At the 1992 Olympic Winter Games in Albertville, France, Harding finished fourth behind Kerrigan, who took the bronze medal.

Harding’s blue-collar background and sometimes angry demeanor on the ice led her to be portrayed as the black sheep of figure skating. “While Kerrigan has become the sweetheart of the skating establishment, Harding is its hellion,” People magazine wrote in a 1994 article. “People said that her sin—before her other sins—was not being the Disney princess Barbie doll that the Figure Skating Association demanded of its skaters,” The New York Times wrote in 2018. Her home life, Harding has said, was troubled as both a child and an adult. She has described physical abuse from her mother, LaVona, and first husband, Jeff Gillooly, charges both have denied. Harding and Gillooly divorced in 1993. As part of the divorce, Harding was granted a restraining order against him. The couple reconciled before the attack on Kerrigan.

The attack

On January 6, 1994, Kerrigan, the reigning national champion and Olympic favorite, was attacked after completing a practice before the 1994 U.S. championship competition. Having suffered a cut and bruising, she was unable to compete. In Kerrigan’s absence Harding took first place, and 13-year-old Michelle Kwan took second. Still, U.S. figure skating officials held a spot on the Olympic team open for Kerrigan, if she could recover in time for the February games. An FBI investigation ultimately concluded that Shawn Eckardt, Harding’s bodyguard and a friend of Gillooly, had hired Shane Stant to carry out the attack. Eckardt, Gillooly, Stant, and Derrick Smith (Stant’s driver) were all convicted and sentenced to prison.

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Though Harding denied involvement in the attack, she ultimately pleaded guilty in March 1994 to hindering the prosecution, admitting that she had learned about Gillooly’s involvement after the fact and failed to report it to authorities. She was sentenced to three years of probation, community service, and $160,000 in fines and charitable contributions. The United States Figure Skating Association stripped Harding of her second national championship title, revoked her membership, and barred her for life, meaning she could neither compete nor coach.

The U.S. Figure Skating Association’s ban on Harding did not take place until after the 1994 Olympic Winter Games, in which Harding and Kerrigan both competed. The controversy surrounding Harding only grew: Before taking the ice for her final free skate, Harding noticed a problem with her skate lace. She began her skate, but the problem persisted. She appealed, sobbing, to the judges, and they permitted her to start over. Harding finished eighth at the event.

Following the dissolution of her skating career, Harding worked odd jobs both in and out of the public eye, including as a professional boxer, a clerk at Sears, and a television announcer. In June 2010 she married her third husband, Joseph Jens Price, legally changing her last name to Price and giving birth to a son the next year. In 2018 she appeared as a contestant on Dancing with the Stars, placing third.

Harding in pop culture

Comedy Central, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and an episode of Saturday Night Live—hosted by Kerrigan with cast members portraying Harding, Gillooly, and Eckardt—all satirized the Harding-Kerrigan incident later in 1994. The sitcom Seinfeld recreated the incident in a 1995 episode titled “The Understudy,” in which George Costanza injures guest star Bette Midler during a softball game, thus allowing Jerry’s girlfriend to step in as Midler’s understudy in a Broadway musical.

Later popular culture portrayals treated (or attempted to treat) Harding’s story and troubled background with more nuance. The 2017 mockumentary biopic I, Tonya, starring Margot Robbie, emphasizes Harding’s relationships with her allegedly abusive mother (played by Allison Janney, who won an Academy Award for the role) and husband Jeff Gillooly (played by Sebastian Stan). The film also contends with the discrimination she faced as an athlete “from the wrong side of the figure skating tracks,” a description that appears in her official Olympic Games biography. Also in 2017 musician Sufjan Stevens released two versions of a single titled “Tonya Harding.” Stevens wrote in an accompanying essay that he had intended “to write something with dignity and grace.” Though The Washington Post called Harding “the latest national punchline to find pop culture redemption,” Harding rejected Stevens’s ode, asking in a New York Times interview: “Who gives these people permission to use my name?”