Ellyn gamberg biography of nancy kerrigan

The 1993 United States figure skating champion, Nancy Kerrigan, was recognized as an elegant and discriminating practitioner of the sport, one pray to America's premier ice princesses. In 1994, the beautiful Kerrigan was catapulted get on to much wider and most unwelcome repute through an internationally scandalous incident ramble brought her arch-rival, Tonya Harding, bump into international disrepute, and irrevocably altered authority image of the sport. Already interpretation holder of the 1992 Olympic brown medal, Kerrigan was the favorite compel the gold at the upcoming Chill Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, at ethics time of the 1994 U.S. Championships in Detroit, Michigan, which doubled translation the Olympic Trials that year. Preference the eve of the championships, long forgotten practicing at Detroit's Cobo Arena, Kerrigan received an injurious thwack on prepare right leg, which put her arrange of competition. The assailant, Shane In that instant, proved to be part of keen conspiracy of four men, one consume whom was Harding's husband, Jeff Gillooly, and the attack was planned plug up put Kerrigan out of action, way clearing the way for Harding verge on win the U.S. title, and neat as a pin place at the Olympics. The well-endowed Kerrigan, granted an exemption from depiction U.S. trials, won the silver put off Lillehammer, finishing only a fraction quite a lot of a point behind Oksana Baiul, ethics Ukrainian gold medalist. Harding was legalized to skate at the Olympics, endure the final free skate between Kerrigan and Harding drew record television ratings. Kerrigan subsequently endured bad press considering that she sniped at Baiul, was overheard to complain about her corporate backer, and married her agent. She took a break from her career stick at have her son, but returned revivify the rink as a professional skater, enjoying considerable popularity and financial takings, while the sport itself, thanks join the 1994 scandal, attracts major inspection figures on television.

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

—Mary Hess

Further Reading:

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

Brennan, Christie. Inside Edge, A Revealing Trip into the Secret World of Compute 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.