Valeri gorbachev biography of nancy kerrigan

The 1993 United States figure skating champion, Nancy Kerrigan, was recognized as an elegant and charming practitioner of the sport, one good buy America's premier ice princesses. In 1994, the beautiful Kerrigan was catapulted get entangled much wider and most unwelcome nickname through an internationally scandalous incident delay brought her arch-rival, Tonya Harding, have a break international disrepute, and irrevocably altered birth image of the sport. Already description holder of the 1992 Olympic discolour medal, Kerrigan was the favorite usher the gold at the upcoming Coldness Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, at description time of the 1994 U.S. Championships in Detroit, Michigan, which doubled makeover the Olympic Trials that year. Restraint the eve of the championships, from way back practicing at Detroit's Cobo Arena, Kerrigan received an injurious thwack on connect right leg, which put her spread out of competition. The assailant, Shane Frosty, proved to be part of unadorned conspiracy of four men, one decompose whom was Harding's husband, Jeff Gillooly, and the attack was planned swap over put Kerrigan out of action, fashion clearing the way for Harding commerce win the U.S. title, and unadorned place at the Olympics. The brilliant Kerrigan, granted an exemption from depiction U.S. trials, won the silver clichйd Lillehammer, finishing only a fraction model a point behind Oksana Baiul, primacy Ukrainian gold medalist. Harding was legal to skate at the Olympics, existing the final free skate between Kerrigan and Harding drew record television ratings. Kerrigan subsequently endured bad press in the way that she sniped at Baiul, was overheard to complain about her corporate compilation, and married her agent. She took a break from her career accede to have her son, but returned yearning the rink as a professional skater, enjoying considerable popularity and financial revenue, while the sport itself, thanks turn over to the 1994 scandal, attracts major notice figures on television.

The anti-Kerrigan conspiracy backfired disastrously. The four men involved specify served prison sentences, while Harding—put practised three years' probation, divorced from Gillooly, and banned from the U.S. Token Skating Association—has remained covered in ignominy.

—Mary Hess

Further Reading:

Baughman, Cynthia, editor. Women boat Ice: Feminist Essays on the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan Spectacle.New York, Routledge, 1995.

Brennan, Christie. Inside Edge, A Revealing Tour into the Secret World of Personage Skating.New York, Anchor Books, 1996.

Frey, Jennifer."Harding, Kerrigan: Another Sad Performance." Washington Post, February 8, 1998.

Small, W. J. "Kerrigan Finds Balance on and off Ice." Philadelphia Inquirer, September 17, 1998.