re: ESPN 30 for 30 The Price Of Gold

Kerrigan also was on Saturday Night Live after the incident.

The girl was damn beautiful to look at but not the angelic figure the media claimed her to be though.

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But also look at the aftermath... Kerrigan not only wasn't a victim, she completely benefits. She ends up getting rich and treated as if she did win the gold, even though she didn't. And while she didn't have to be nice to Harding or anything, she certainly went out of her way to make it as difficult as possible. She even wore the same outfit just to rub people's faces in it. She gets the private workouts and has the US team supporting her case to not have to even practice at the same time as Harding, while Harding has to practice at a friggin' mall and has reporters hounding her at the hotel. Yet she still has people saying how she had to overcome so many distractions at Lillehammer, despite being placed in that bubble.

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I'm sure there were reasons people "sided" with Kerrigan.

And Harding CHOSE to practice in the mall arena and she loved all the attention. Where did it say that she was forced to practice there??? And Nancy did have to overcome "distractions" such as getting clubbed in the knee cap with a bat or whatever it was 5 weeks before the Olympics

I don't know much about Kerrigan and all I really know about Harding was what I saw of her in the interviews. And it seems obvious why people wouldn't like her...

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Did Harding work out at the mall bc she had nowhere else to go? Or did she just love the spotlight?

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Well I people sometimes people will rent an ice rink for birthday parties and stuff. Seems like she would've rented a place to use.

Watching that reminded me how much better Harding was than Kerrigan (when she was "on").

Kerrigan's jumps always looked tiny compared to Harding's, like she was afraid to fall. Kerrigan never struck me as a gold medal-type talent but Tonya sure did when she first came on the scene. She was not the "chosen one" though (about half her fault and half snobbery in the system).

The NBC documentary is bound to be nothing more than a Kerrigan puff piece. I imagine Harding will look much worse on that one, although they won't get into the sex tape since it'll be at a family friendly hour. Besides, we know how much NBC sanitizes their Olympic coverage. I'll still check it out because every now and then, they manage to put together an incredible piece, like the one on the Canadian airport that was used to land hundreds of planes on 9/11 and 9/12 that were coming to JFK from Europe. But it'll probably be really bland.

That being said, I wasn't impressed with The Price of Gold, either. They couldn't get Kerrigan, they didn't even both to ask Gilloolly (it sounds like they asked Shane Stantt but he wouldn't come on TV), and someone could have watched the entire documentary and not know that Harding was the world silver medalist in 1991 and 4th in the 1992 Olympics. Also, Kornheiser is such a useless talking head. Baiul was the defending world champion, and he has no idea who she was It reminded me of a PTI segment where he is trying to talk about soccer.

I agree with you that Tonya was by far the biggest loser in all of this. Everyone cashed in after the 94 Worlds, not just Kerrigan. The men, the pairs team, the women who didn't medal, the women who were competing in Calgary or Albertville. And so many of them made high six figure incomes for a few years. The bigger names made even more. The ones who were smart and invested wisely (Wylie, Hamilton) were set for life by the age of 35. Hell, Hamilton was producing tours with all of the figure skaters and was printing money for a time.

Tonya got nothing, and that's why she had to sell the sex tape and photos to Penthouse, to pay off her fine. I get that, but if you're going to do a documentary where she is your primary talking head, you have to mention that. The boxing career was mentioned for maybe 10 seconds, as well.

Tonya was her own biggest enemy. She was in a tough spot. Kerrigan was the one with the Reebok deal and the Campbell's Soup ad I would see every time I turned on the television. Harding had no money at all. However, if she had continued on her course and finished 7th or 8th in the Olympics, she would have been a solid secondary performer on a skating tour for a few years and could then get involved in coaching and training athletes.

Instead, she is blackballed from her sport, which is essentially the only thing in life she has any natural talent for.

That being said, I think she knew beforehand. I'm not surprised she doesn't know Shane Stantt. Gilloolly's story hasn't ever really changed. He said that he and Shawn Eckhart planned it and were debating whether or not to do it. Harding gave her approval, and they found the two guys to do it. I'll believe that, especially when no one says otherwise besides Harding, and there are things like the handwriting sample that make her look like a blatant liar.

By the way, here is the Amy K Nelson article on Jeff Gillooly. It's a very good read, definitely not the typical Deadspin stuff. It's interesting to see their interaction, even though it's over the phone. Nelson is infinitely more intelligent and mature than Harding, but you can tell she's still kind of charmed by Gillooly. He seems to be one of those guys who has a pleasant personality but is a sociopath deep down.

He's also a train wreck, having declared bankruptcy, been arrested for a DUI and domestic abuse, and getting sued multiple times. Seems like he's doing a bit better now, though.

LINK

Just came across this long article. Very detailed, quality reporting from Bleacher Report, of all places LINK

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Twenty years ago, Stant whacked Kerrigan on the knee for $6,500 and unleashed a media firestorm and sports controversy that drew worldwide attention.

It all started when Stant's phone rang a day or two before Christmas 1993. His uncle, Derrick Smith, called to ask if Stant, then 22, would hurt somebody for money. Pressed for specifics, Smith asked if Stant would "take down a skater,'' according to Stant's FBI confession. Stant asked for more details.

A man named Shawn Eckardt called and said it would involve slicing the skater's Achilles tendon. Stant said no. He wouldn't cut anybody. They settled on injuring the person enough so she could not skate.

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Gillooly showed up a little while after Stant and Smith arrived. Eckardt pressed "record" on a tape recorder he had hidden under a paper towel. He and Smith figured they could use the recording against Gillooly if Gillooly turned on them or refused to pay.

The four men—Gillooly, Eckardt, Smith and Stant—discussed the best way to attack Kerrigan. Stant and Gillooly told the FBI that Eckardt suggested killing Kerrigan, but nobody else wanted to go that far. Gillooly said damaging Kerrigan's right leg was the best plan, because that is her landing leg, and if she couldn't land, she couldn't skate. They planned to hurt her before the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, which was scheduled for Jan. 7 in Detroit.

If Kerrigan missed the competition, that would all but guarantee Harding's place on the Olympic team (Harding is shown above skating in those championships, a day after the attack; photo from Getty Images). The men decided the attack should take place in Massachusetts, where Kerrigan practiced.

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Eckardt boasted constantly about 'asset protection' and 'hostage retrieval' assignments overseas, telling you every time you saw him that he just got back from Kenya or had to leave the next day for New Zealand, yet he drove a 1976 Mercury and kept the corporate headquarters of World Bodyguard Services in a spare bedroom at his parents' home.

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Yeah, I was kinda confused by the handwriting thing. When Tonya spoke about the handwriting she said it was proven it wasn't hers. But then immediately after she said that, the D.A. said the analysis proved it was was hers. Wtf is she thinking? I agree she probably had no idea who the goons were who was hired to do it, but to say she had no prior knowledge beforehand, is silly.

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That and when she said "no one who really knows me knows I had nothing to do with it". Next clip is her childhood friend saying she def thinks she had something to do with it

Both of those were WTF moments. She's in major denial