Tonya Maxine Harding (born November 12, 1970) is a former figure skater from Portland, Oregon. Despite a tough childhood in an unstable family, as well as being plagued by asthma, she became an elite figure skater. She won the U.S. Figure Skating Championships twice and placed second in the 1991 World Championships. She was the second woman, and the first American woman, to complete a triple axel jump in competition.

Skating career

Harding began to work her way up the competitive skating ladder in the mid-1980's. She placed 6th at the 1986 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, 5th in 1987 and 1988, and 3rd in 1989. At the 1990 event, suffering from the flu, she could only place 7th. Harding was a powerful jumper and spinner, but had a reputation of being an inconsistent competitor and unpolished in terms of style. She was also held back by mediocre compulsory figures before they were eliminated from competition in 1990.

1991 was Harding's breakthrough year. She landed her first triple axel in competition at the U.S. Championships, winning the title with the first 6.0 ever given to a female singles skater for technical merit at that event. In her career, Harding landed only four triple axels in competition, and all of them in 1991: one at the U.S. Championships, one at the World Championships, and two at the fall Skate America competition.

In 1992, Harding placed 3rd at the U.S. Championships after twisting her ankle in practice, and 4th at the 1992 Winter Olympics. At the 1992 World Championships, she placed only 6th in a weak field. The following season, Harding was noticibly overweight and out of condition, and she skated so poorly at the 1993 U.S. Championships that she failed to qualify for the World Championship team.

The latter part of Harding's competitive career was marked by a series of accidents, incidents, and excuses, causing television commentators to observe that no competition was complete without Tonya having a crisis. Some of these "crises" included:

• Skating magazine reported that at Skate America in 1991, Harding was stranded in heavy traffic just before her event was scheduled to begin, and had to hitch a ride with people who drove her backwards through traffic to the arena.

• In the short program at the 1993 U.S. Championships, Harding had to ask permission from the referee to restart her program after the back of her dress came unhooked as she began to skate.

• At 1993 Skate America, Harding stopped midway through her free skate and complained to the referee that her skate blade had become loose. She was allowed to resume her program after her blades were checked by a skate technician.

• In late 1993, Harding was scheduled to compete in a regional qualifying competition for the U.S. Championships. However, before the event, its organizers received an anonymous telephoned bomb threat against Harding, which led the USFSA to excuse her from having to qualify. Morry Stillwell, former USFSA president, later asserted in a Usenet posting [1] that the FBI had evidence that Harding herself participated in making the threat.

• The medal ceremony at the 1994 U.S. Championships had to be delayed because Harding could not be found backstage after the competition.

• At the 1994 Olympic Games, Harding almost failed to appear on the ice when her name was called for the free skating because she was scrambling to replace a broken lace. The replacement lace turned out to be too short, and after missing the opening jump in her program she again had to ask the referee for permission to restart.

Many observers in the skating world, including Scott Hamilton, felt that Harding was deliberately trying to sabotage her career by making excuses for failure. In addition to the incidents listed above, following her 1991 success, she went through a series of coaching changes (at one point she was even attempting to coach herself), and she arrived so late for the competition at the 1992 Olympic Games competition that her performance was affected by jet lag. In spite of the publicity she received about being handicapped by asthma, she also smoked.

The Kerrigan attack

She became notorious for allegedly conspiring to harm competitor Nancy Kerrigan in an attack, which took place on January 6, 1994 at a practice session during the 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. Harding's ex-husband Jeff Gillooly had hired Shane Stant to strike Kerrigan on the knee. Harding went on to win that event, while Kerrigan's injury forced her to withdraw. After Harding admitted that she had helped to cover up the attack, both the United States Figure Skating Association and United States Olympic Committee initiated proceedings to remove her from the 1994 Olympic team, but Harding retained her place after threatening legal action. She finished eighth while Kerrigan, recovered from her injuries, finished second.

On February 1, 1994, Harding's ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly accepted a plea bargain in exchange for his testimony against Harding. Harding avoided further prosecution and a possible jail sentence in that scandal by pleading guilty on March 16 to hindering the investigation into the attack. She received three years probation, 500 hours community service and a $160,000 fine. She maintains her innocence in the planning of the attack itself, contradicting the confessions of the alleged conspirators.

After conducting its own investigation of the attack, the U.S. Figure Skating Association (USFSA) stripped Harding of her 1994 U.S. title and banned her for life from participating in any of its sanctioned events, or from becoming a sanctioned coach, because it concluded that she had indeed known about the attack before it happened. Although the USFSA has no control over professional skating events, Harding was also persona non grata on the pro circuit because few skaters and promoters wanted to work with her. So, while pro skating enjoyed a tremendous boom in popularity as a consequence of the scandal, Harding played no part in it.

During the buildup to the 1994 Olympics, Charles Barkley made the following memorable quote concerning Harding:

I heard Tonya Harding is calling herself the Charles Barkley of figure skating. I was going to sue her for defamation of character, but then I realized I have no character.

Later celebrity

Tonya Harding entered the world of the nude Internet celebrity with the appearance of a pornograpic "Wedding Video" that shows her having sex with her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly. Gillooly (who, not long after the scandal began to fade from prominence, changed his name to "Jeff Stone") sold the tape to a tabloid show after having been implicated as a conspirator in the Kerrigan attack. Stills from the tape were published by Penthouse in September 1994, and the tape itself was released at about the same time.

Harding appeared on a USA Pro Wrestling show in 1994 as the manager for wrestler Art Barr.

In late 1996, Harding used mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to help revive an 81-year-old woman, Alice Olson, who collapsed at a bar in Portland, Oregon, while playing video poker.

Harding has had a number of run-ins with the law since her involvement with the Kerrigan attack. Some of the incidents which have been reported in the press include:

On May 25, 1995, it was reported that Harding claimed she was being stalked by professional golfers driving a white Lincoln Town Car, resulting in a car chase involving Harding, her ex-husband Gillooly, and the police.

On February 12, 1997, Harding claimed that she was abducted at knife-point outside her home by a bushy-haired man who forced her to drive to a rural area, where she rammed her truck into a tree and escaped by running into the woods. This incident happened on the opening weekend of the 1997 U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

On October 16, 1997, Harding reported that her truck had been stolen from a shopping mall parking lot.

On January 6, 2000, six years to the day after the attack on Kerrigan, Harding was in the news again after she lost control of her truck on an icy road and landed in a ditch. She and a male companion then allegedly made threats against a press photographer.

On February 24, 2000, Harding was ordered by a Clark County judge to stay away from alcohol and her former boyfriend, Darren Silver, after being booked on fourth-degree Domestic Violence assault charges for punching Silver and throwing a hubcap at him at their Camas, Washington residence. Harding was also sentenced to 3 days in jail and 10 days of community service on a work crew. Shortly before this, Harding had been attemping to make a comeback as a professional skater, but the hubcap incident effectively put an end to her skating career.

On April 20, 2002, Harding was involved in another accident with her truck in a ditch. She was cited for drunk driving and a violation of her probation agreement from her 2000 conviction. According to her police records, she was 5 ft 1 in (1.55 m) tall and weighed 105 lb (47 kg) at the time.

On October 23, 2005, Harding, apparently again under the influence of alcohol, was involved in a fight at her home in Vancouver, Washington with Christopher Nolan, a man she described as her boyfriend. Initially, she made a 911 call claiming to have been assaulted in her home by two masked men. For his part, Nolan claimed that Harding attacked him after having too much to drink. In the end, Nolan was charged with assault and ordered to stay away from Harding and to avoid alcohol.

Boxing career

In 2002, Tonya Harding boxed on the Fox TV network Celebrity Boxing event against Paula Jones, winning the fight. On February 22, 2003, she made her official women's professional boxing debut, losing a four round decision in the undercard of the Mike Tyson-Clifford Etienne bout, amid rumors that she was broke and needed to box to get some money.

Harding won her third pro bout against Alejandra Lopez at the Creek Nations Gaming Center.

On March 23, 2004, it was reported that Harding cancelled a planned boxing match against Tracy Carlton in Oakland, California because of an alleged death threat against her.

On June 24 2004, after reportedly not having boxed for over a year, Harding was beaten in a match in Edmonton, Alberta by Amy Johnson. Fans reportedly booed Harding as she entered the ring, and cheered wildly for Johnson as she won in the third round.

As of August, 2004 her record is 2-2-0 (0 KO).

External links

• A timeline of events in the scandal
• http://www.tonyaharding.org/
• http://www.tonyaharding.com/
• USFSA web site
• sptimes.com Harding, Kerrigan are linked forever by skating incident
• courttv.com Interview with Harvey Schiller, former Exec. Dir. US Olympic Committee (talks about Harding)