The film I, Tonya, has been well-received and is even up for an Oscar or two. I’m pleased about that because I’ve met Tonya Harding and her story has always fascinated me, not least because to watch her skate in the run up to the 1994 Olympics (particularly in Oakland, California in 1991 at the Ladies Free Skate competition) is to witness sport, art and sheer guts come together in an unfathomable holy trinity. It all went terribly wrong, of course, and she became the most reviled ice skater in the world.
Just to recap, six weeks before those Olympics, Harding’s bodyguard, acting on instructions from her already ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, clubbed the golden girl, Nancy Kerrigan, across the right knee with a metal bar after she had finished a practice session in Detroit.
Gillooly pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering and was sentenced to two years in prison and fined $100,000; the bodyguard, Shawn Eckardt, was also jailed but Harding skated free from imprisonment.
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