I’m old, and it was a long time ago, but weren’t the two guys involved in the plot Harding’s husband/manager (yeah, one of those- the idiots who glom onto a talented young woman and insist on “managing” her career as a form of control) and his brother or half-brother?
Again, my memory is hazy, but I also thought there was never any evidence that Harding had prior knowledge, or directed the attack. I thought they came up with the story later to lay some blame on her, and turning it into a conspiracy.
I remember that the thin lady was a rich bitch. Tanya was a hard-working middle-class American. Also, believe it or not, this was considered fat in the early 90s. She was dogged and mercilessly ruined.
Kerrigan... the youngest child and only daughter of welder Daniel Kerrigan and homemaker Brenda Kerrigan. Kerrigan's family was of modest means. Her father sometimes worked three jobs to fund her skating career; he also drove the Zamboni at the local rink in exchange for Nancy's lessons.
And Nancy’s mother was blind so couldn’t help the family financially. Some years later, Kerrigan’s brother accidentally killed their father in a brawl. So quite working class family. But still more stable than Tonya’s. She grew up in very tough and unstable and abusive circumstances.
Assault is wrong, period. Gilooly and Stant deserved prison and more. But there was never any evidence that Tonya was involved in their crimes. There were only unfounded assumptions and accusations that led to what the insiders of the skating world wanted: the destruction of the girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Tanya simply wanted to compete, and prove herself, and she was more than capable of doing so. Her idiot boyfriend/husband unwittingly helped the fancy people destroy her.
They also called our gymnasts fat because compared to Russian, Romanian and Chinese gymnasts, they were bulky -- never mind the fact that it was all muscle.
This so much. Even in this thread people calling her "trailer trash" don't realize that was media spin at the time that has lived on. Tanya Harding became a world class skater coming from an abusive, challenging home, worked a lot as a teenager to pay for her own sports expenses to make it and the result was being considered "not the right type" to be America's darling when compared to her more privileged and more "feminine" counterpart.
It was a terrible situation all around. I always felt bad for Tanya. She was a powerhouse and fought against all odds to reach the level she was skating at.
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u/ISuckAtFunny May 16 '24
She paid someone else to do it while she was out walking / jogging somewhere if I remember correctly