Tonya Harding in 1986 Skate America

[sheilagh]

I remember seeing a documentary on Ms. Harding in the period shortly after the whole Tonya/Nancy thing. They played a clip of the 1986 program wherein she popped to a single in the first part of a combination .. and then cut to another clip of Tonya after the performance in which she discussed being reamed out by her mother for having missed the combination.

It is really unfortunate that such an innately talented individual had t grow up in the type of environment she did. I honestly think that was her undoing.



-- sheilgah

[Eeyora]

While the short haircut is kinda silly by today's standards. I actually perfare her with the pouffy bangs verrsus the no bangs look of the 94 olympics.

[Vash01]

Wow! What an amazing talent! I love the athleticism.

[Mafke]

While the short haircut is kinda silly by today's standards. I actually perfare her with the pouffy bangs verrsus the no bangs look of the 94 olympics.

True, I personally like bangs and ponytails, together or separately (but especially together) and dislike poofy short hair.

I remember when Harding and Ito were my favorite female skaters (and Paul Wylie was my favorite male skater). Let the other ladies prance around like pixiebelle, I just loved was the clean spare power they demonstrated. Ito was (badly IMHO) advised to become more 'artistic' and began waving her arms around and trying to 'interpret' the music (who needs that when you can fly across the rink and soar like a falcon?) and Harding ... It's such a shame what happened to her. It's true that many people had worse home situations and didn't muck up their lives as thoroughly as she did, but it's still a shame.

[hydroradi]

The sad part about Tonya, regardless of her past personal problems is she had made it. She overcame the bad family situaion, the abusive mother, being dirt poor, USFSA not liking her skating style and life choices. She was National Champion in 1991, Second in the world championships in 1991, and beat Kristi Yamaguchi at Skate America in 1991...where it wasn't close at all. She was just so dominating in that compeition she easily would have won the gold medal if she had skated like that in Albertville.

But she stopped training hard and became lazy, came to Albertville jet-lagged, and blew her best chance at a gold medal. She was never the same after 1991.

People only remember the circus atmosphere of 1994 with the attack and all her bizarre behavior years later and forget how close she really came to winning it all in 1992. That's the biggest tragedy of the Tonya Harding story in my mind. Cause a win or a medal at Albertville would have set into motion a chain of events that would have resulted in a completely different life than the one she has now.

[Ptichka]

Well said, hydroradi.

[Eeyora]

Bravo hydroradi!!!

[swissmiss]

I remember when Harding and Ito were my favorite female skaters (and Paul Wylie was my favorite male skater). Let the other ladies prance around like pixiebelle, I just loved was the clean spare power they demonstrated.

I love "Festive Overture", the piece Tonya skated to in the 1986 clip. It hasn't been used very often for skating, and she's one of the only skaters who have the power and speed to pull it off. Most skaters would look like they're going too slow for the music.

One of the other "features" of 1980's skating, besides the big hair, was the bad music editing. The piece sandwiched in between the two sections of "Festive" doesn't make sense either musically or for her skating. But I guess it was just the way things were done back then.