The calendar doesn’t lie, but I still can’t comprehend that it was twenty years ago that figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was attacked and injured by someone associated with her arch rival Tonya Harding. Twenty years? That means that most of my voice students at Carthage weren’t even born yet – or were still in diapers – when this shocking act and its crazy aftermath turned the world of figure skating upside down. I still remember it as though it were yesterday …. the initial report on the evening news which was incomprehensible (one of those rare stories where you seriously think “I must have heard that wrong!”) …. the tension-riddled U.S. Championships that went on with the injured Kerrigan watching from the stands as Harding won the title ….. the media circus which swirled around Kerrigan’s comeback and the deepening cloud of suspicion surrounding Harding, culminating in the supreme drama of the Olympic Games in Lillehammer a few weeks later, where Kerrigan won the silver medal while Harding limped to 8th place. It felt like the whole world, albeit for all the wrong reasons, was talking about figure skating.
One of the things that frustrated me at the time was how so many people insisted on choosing sides, whether they aligned themselves with the gentle, feminine Kerrigan from a fine upstanding New England family (complete with a loving mother who was legally blind) or the scrappy, aggressive Harding, born on the wrong side of the tracks in Oregon (complete with a mom whose parenting style was bruising in more ways than one.) The easiest thing in the world, then and now, was to contrast these two skaters in an almost cartoonish way … when in fact the real story was so much richer and more interesting than that. Some of my most potent memories from ten years ago ….
“Smile!” – One of the first times I watched Nancy Kerrigan skate was on television in what I believe was a Skate America competition in the late 1980’s, before she had achieved any fame whatsoever. She skated a very rough long program with more falls than successful jumps. This particular telecast, there was a spot just off of the ice where the skater was to stand and watch as their scores came up on a small screen – but in this case, the coaches were kept off to the side and off camera, unlike the typical Kiss & Cry that one usually sees, with the skater and coaches falling into each other’s arms. Here, the skater seemed to be standing all by themselves as they watched their marks come up. As Nancy stood there and watched as her disastrous numbers came up, she had this stricken look on her face and seemed seconds away from crying. Suddenly you heard a voice from off camera forcefully whisper “smile!” – and Nancy immediately pasted an effortful smile on her face which looked even more painful, and by the time the camera finally pulled away, you could see tears in her eyes. I remember thinking how difficult it would be to go out in front of a large crowd, skate a disastrous long program, and then have to cover up your own anguish in front of a television camera. I am haunted by that moment to this day, and it’s one reason why I’ve had such a soft place in my heart for Nancy Kerrigan ever since. One of the points of Mary Carillo’s excellent documentary which just aired on NBC is to point out how amazing it was that Kerrigan came back to skate so well at the Olympics, even amidst such relentless attention from the press. Only a person of exceptional character and courage could manage what she did under such incredibly difficult circumstances.
“What a great moment for this young lady!!!” – I’ve been watching figure skating rabidly for more than a quarter century and can quote names and statistics the way a baseball fanatic can tell you who was the American League MVP in 1997. Certain moments are iconic, and you can almost picture the room you were in and what you were wearing when you witnessed history being made. I can still remember watching the 1991 U.S. Figure Skating Championships and being absolutely blown away by Tonya Harding’s free skate, when she became the first American woman to land a triple axel in competition. (I can still remember commentator Dick Button exclaiming as her triumphant program came to an end, “and what a great moment for this young lady!!!” Button knew something about skating history himself, being the first person to land a double axel in competition, as well as the first person to land a triple jump of any kind in competition. As someone who himself had made skating history, he was in a unique position to appreciate what Harding had just accomplished.) A couple of years ago in an ESPN documentary, she was asked to talk about this astonishing moment – the zenith of her career – and she described it with delight and wonder, and then suddenly broke into tears. “Sorry,” she said, trying to collect herself, before continuing “nobody ever asks me about this stuff.” She meant, of course, that all that anyone wants to talk about now is related to the Nancy Kerrigan incident and the story of how Harding’s promising career went down in flames. And maybe that’s as it should be, given Harding’s admitted misconduct – and given the great likelihood that she may in fact have played a substantial role in hatching the attack plot. (Something she continues to deny.) Even so, how tragic to have the finest achievement of one’s life and career relegated to the background in favor of tabloid headlines.
The Youngster – One dark side to the Kerrigan/Harding circus is that it obscured other stories that were so positive and deserved wider impact. For instance, the skater who finished second to Harding in the 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championships was a tiny, graceful dynamo by the name of Michelle Kwan. She was just beginning a career which would eventually garner her 9 U.S. titles and 5 world titles, making her the most decorated American figure skater (male or female) in history. As the second place finisher in the U.S. Championship, she would normally have been headed to the upcoming Olympics, but the decision was made to give that spot to Kerrigan. Kwan, interviewed in the immediate wake of that decision, could not have been more gracious, saying that both of those older skaters were marvelous champions and deserved the chance to go. I remember falling in love with her right then and there, and hoping that Olympic glory would be hers someday. And it was, although she ended up “only” winning silver in 1998 and bronze in 2002. (When one thinks of what it means to win a silver medal in the Olympics, the word “only” does not belong there …. unless you came into those Games as the favorite to win it all.) I won’t ever forget Kwan’s sweet and genuine graciousness at this moment which had to be so disappointing for her.
The Returning Veteran – Another wonderful story out of those ’94 championships, almost completely forgotten now, is that a past champion by the name of Elaine Zayak came out of retirement to compete. A past world and U.S. champion, Zayak was as responsible as anyone for revolutionizing women’s skating and making it much more about athletic jumping than it had ever been before – landing six triples at the 1982 World Championships in an era when most women would land one or two (if that.) She actually began skating as a youngster because of a lawn mower accident in which she ended up losing several toes off of her left foot. Doctors thought skating might be great therapy, not having any way of knowing that she would be a major part of skating history. Ten years after her last amateur competition, Zayak – at the “ancient” age of 29 – reinstated herself as an amateur and skated very well at the 1994 championships, finishing fourth. Not bad for an old lady- and her long program was my personal favorite of that entire competition. At a moment when ladies figure skating needed a lovely and uplifting story (with the assault on Kerrigan having just occurred and her recovery from it still in doubt) Zayak’s story was it.
The story of Kerrigan/Harding culminated at the Olympics – and I can still remember sitting in my car on a cold January afternoon, listening on the radio to live coverage of the short program …. in which Kerrigan skated brilliantly while Harding struggled. It says something about the level of interest in ladies figure skating at the moment that such a visual sport was being broadcast over national radio as though it were a baseball game. (Kerrigan’s good friend and fellow skater Paul Wylie was the commentator, describing the action- and it was incredibly exciting, even if you couldn’t see it.) And that night’s telecast of that phase of the competition remains one of the most watched sporting events in television history.
Figure skating is in some ways – to quote sportscaster Jim McKay – “perhaps the loneliest sport in the world,” even in a moment like 1994 when it seemed like everyone on the planet was watching. In the end, even with loving (or not so loving) parents and friends in the stands and dedicated, devoted coaches and trainers and choreographers at the side of the rink, and a host of fans cheering your triumphs and groaning with your falls, it comes down to the skater and the ice beneath their skates …. and whether or not they can launch themselves into the air, spin with dizzying speed, and land again. Sometimes you land the jump with dazzling perfection. Sometimes you fight desperately for the landing and succeed by the skin of your teeth. And sometimes you fall. Hard. And while each jump is in and of itself a miniature drama (‘will they or won’t they land it?’) the career of a skater is a much longer drama which involves all kinds of sacrifices – tough choices – victories and losses – comebacks from injuries – and contending with one’s own physical and emotional changes, and wrestling with what it means to be a competitor vs. an athlete vs. an artist vs. a well-rounded and happy human being. I suppose it’s so with just about every sport- but there is something about figure skating in which we are much closer witnesses to all that. We see their faces as they’re preparing – as they skate – and as they leave the ice to receive their marks. There are no helmets or goggles to obscure our view. It’s all there…. the joy and the anguish, the triumphs and the regrets, the kind of human drama that many of us find utterly irresistible.
pictured above: One of the most famous skating moves by Nancy Kerrigan, her signature Spiral.