Who Banned Tonya Harding From Skating Again
From Skillful Housekeeping
Audrey Williams, the Canadian judge at the 1994 Wintertime Olympics, didn't see Tonya Harding's broken lace with her own optics, only she was at the table when Tonya tearfully glided over to tell the ref information technology had given out. "I merely couldn't believe that she would practise information technology," Williams says over the telephone. At the time, many saw Harding'south meltdown every bit karma: She was competing at the Olympics despite having perchance, possibly helped her ex-married man (Jeff Gillooly) and bodyguard (Shawn Eckhardt) plan an set on on Nancy Kerrigan. T his is what she gets.
Just to run into the moment depicted in Craig Gillespie'south I, Tonya, the blackness-comedy biopic that paints Harding as a sympathetic character rather than a "white trash" villain, the scene is nothing curt of tragic. Harding was an exceptional athlete who made it to the Olympics despite being a poor high-school dropout with an allegedly abusive mom and husband. This was the end of the road for her. She placed eighth (Kerrigan placed second), and was thereafter banned from the U.S. Figure Skating Clan for life. (She plead guilty to hindering the prosecution just maintains to this day that she did not know nearly the set on on Kerrigan prior to it happening.)
Williams, who turns 85 today, hasn't seen the moving-picture show yet (she says she'll likely go around Christmas), but she's enlightened that information technology's in one case again sparked public interest in the "incident." Hither, she shares her memories of the 1994 Winter Olympics, which marked her kickoff time equally an Olympic approximate, and gives her thoughts on Harding.
Once in that location was a question of whether Tonya was involved in the attack on Nancy, do you recall she should have be allowed to compete in the Olympics?
I figured that she shouldn't have been allowed to, and I remember all of us saying that the U.S. Figure Skating Association should have stopped it in the bud, so they left it up to the Olympic Committee to try to terminate it, and they did aught. And this is going forwards a flake, but when we got to the Olympics, there were a lot of athletes that certainly didn't get the attention they should have got because of the Kerrigan and Tonya Harding mishap, and that was actually lamentable, considering there was a Norwegian speed skater that was breaking records every day and he hardly got whatever attention, and that kind of made everybody a lilliputian annoyed.
How closely did you follow Tonya's career prior to '94?
I saw Tonya at a Skate America in San Francisco, and she really skated well. I'thousand not sure where she [placed], but certainly she medaled. And so I was a referee at a Skate America in Dallas, and she missed her triple axel, and she came up [and] said her bract was loose. I didn't experience whatsoever weakness on the blade. Then I gave it to an international skating matrimony human that was at that place and I said, "You attempt it." And he said, "Allow'due south let her accept another hazard." Then she was onto this trick, and so when she did information technology at the Olympics, I simply couldn't believe it.
What exercise you mean by "onto this trick"?
Either a shoelace or a weak skate or a weak blade, the blade was loose. I only saw her practice it twice, but I know she did information technology other times - either her dress or her skate blade or her lace [had a problem]. And it was the lace at the Olympics.
That scene with the lace appears in the movie, and it's so dramatic that I had to get dorsum and watch the video to retrieve if it was really that dramatic in real life.
Yup, it was. I only couldn't believe that she would do it. And I didn't believe that her lace was cleaved. I tin can't honestly say, I never saw it. I was the number-eight judge, so I was downwardly from the referee. I saw her lifting her leg up. Didn't brand whatever difference in the way that she [skated]; she didn't really skate that well. She didn't become her triple axel in, so information technology didn't change where I had her. I don't remember where I placed her, but it was effectually 8th, I think.
Were you lot prepared for the media storm at the Olympics?
No! The offset practice was unbelievable. They brought a 747 over full of reporters, journalists, and that was in the solar day where they had the films that were in a tube, and then it sounded similar a war, with these tubes being thrown on the ground and everybody going click, click, click. It was very frustrating. For the skaters, for the judges, for the people that are running information technology. They certainly didn't want to take to put upward with all the security.
Were you concerned that it would distract from your power to estimate fairly?
No, because as a judge, y'all're prepared for everything, and I don't think it made any departure in my judgement.
"I, Tonya" offers a sympathetic view of Tonya, which has been the direction the conversation has been going over the past few years - at that place was also ESPN's The Cost of Gold. Practise you personally feel sympathy for Tonya?
Well, I had admiration for her, because she learned to skate in a mall. There were good coaches in that mall, only that's pretty hard, not having a preparation facility when all the other skaters had real training facilities. So I always felt, "Oh, gosh, she's washed actually, really well." I tin can't say I have sympathy for her, considering she let this happen, and she injure a lot of people.
Our girl [Canadian skater Josée Chouinard], she was the skater after Tonya. [Skaters] make upwards their schedule, what they're going to do, in minutes. Well, Tonya had to take her skates off [and Chouinard was sent out to skate before Tonya]. So it inverse her whole pattern, and it changed the pattern not only for her, but for a few skaters following her.
In that location's one part in the flick where Tonya approaches a judge and asks why she's not getting improve marks, and he told her she doesn't accept the sort of wholesome epitome or family unit they want representing the country.
Oooh, that's terrible. That'due south not right. I can't encounter a judge maxim that, sorry. I've been asked by lots of skaters [why they didn't score ameliorate], and parents, and you stand at that place and tell them - but it's not for something similar that, it'south for what happened on the water ice. Your jump wasn't high plenty, y'all didn't have enough jumps, your running edge wasn't adept, whatsoever. Y'all attempt to be as honest as you can with them. Say she's skating to "Rhapsody in Blueish" and she has a royal clothes on - why not take a blue dress? Make a consummate package. I don't call back Tonya e'er really did that.
Permit's say Nancy was never attacked and Tonya skated the all-time she could possibly skate: Do yous think there was whatever hope of Tonya getting a aureate medal at the Olympics?
No. There were as well many better skaters. Just she was in the pinnacle-ten. I call up we started with pretty close to 40 [skaters], so that's astonishing.
Practice you think Tonya deserved to get banned from figure skating?
Yes. When her partner or her friend hired somebody to hit Nancy, definitely yes. You don't win friends and influence people past [doing] that. And I just retrieve that'southward what nosotros have to do, and then other people don't go out and do it.
Couldn't she take only gone to prison?
Yeah, only she was finished anyhow. She was at the top of her career. Past the time the Olympics came effectually, Tonya didn't take the spark she had when she was younger.
Do you think she was given a off-white shot by the skating community?
I do. Because she fabricated it to the Olympics. A lot of skaters never get anywhere near there. So she couldn't have been that held back. She got there.
Tonya maintains to this day that she knew nothing about the set on in advance. Do you believe that?
I merely don't know. I can't honestly say ane way or the other. I hope she didn't. But I tin can't say she didn't. Nosotros'll never know.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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Source: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/1994-olympics-judge-remembers-tonya-191352458.html
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