The Price of Gold
- Episode aired Jan 16, 2014
- TV-G
- 1h 18m
IMDb RATING
7.4/10
1.2K
YOUR RATING
The Kerrigan - Harding incident that rocked the Olympic and sports world.The Kerrigan - Harding incident that rocked the Olympic and sports world.The Kerrigan - Harding incident that rocked the Olympic and sports world.
- Awards
- 1 win
Photos
Oksana Baiul
- Self
- (archive footage)
Mahlon Bradley
- Self
- (archive footage)
Shawn Eckardt
- Self
- (archive footage)
Peggy Fleming
- Self
- (archive footage)
Jeff Gillooly
- Self
- (archive footage)
Lavona Golden
- Self
- (archive footage)
Dorothy Hamill
- Self
- (archive footage)
Sonja Henie
- Self
- (archive footage)
Nancy Kerrigan
- Self
- (archive footage)
Larry King
- Self
- (archive footage)
Storyline
Did you know
- ConnectionsFeatures ABC World News Tonight with David Muir (1953)
Featured review
Probably the Most Jarring Scandal Ever to Rock Olympic Ice Skating
There's an interesting moment in the film "The Ides of March" in which a presidential campaign intern confesses she made a terrible mistake. One of the supervisors of the campaign, played by Ryan Gosling, says to her, "When you make a mistake, you lose the right to play." This is the reality that Tonya Harding and her "associates" did not understand about competing in sports at the national and international levels, and this is what this documentary is all about: making a very stupid mistake and not comprehending that it could and did jeopardize a professional skating career. In short, you can lose the right or privilege to play. To say they should have known better is like saying the people running Enron could have used better judgement. Duh.
Tonya Harding was the bad girl skater from a lower middle-class family out of Oregon while her skating rival Nancy Kerrigan was the "good girl" from New England, even though the latter's father was a welder. Kerringan was beloved of the judges at skating events while Harding felt there was a double standard because she was from the lower middle class. However, she didn't do herself any favors by being the obnoxious girl who didn't know how to behave herself. She had a reputation for cursing at the judges when she didn't feel her score was fair.
Obnoxiousness aside, Harding was one of the greatest American skaters of her generation, and possibly had a shot at Olympic Gold. She was going to compete against Nancy Kerrigan at the 1994 U. S. Figure Skating Championships. The top award-winners were almost guaranteed to get spots on the US Olympic team in 1994, the strange year when the winter Olympics would be held in two consecutive even years. (In the early 1990's the Olympic committee had decided to hold the summer and winter Olympics two years apart instead of in the same year, so that every two years, rather than every four, Olympics would be held. That meant, the Winter Olympics would occur one time in consecutive even years, in this case 1992 and 1994, and thereafter every four years.)
On January 6, 1994, on the eve of the US Skating Championships, Nancy after a routine practice at a skating rink, was assaulted on her knee/thigh by an assailant wielding a police baton. It was quickly revealed the assailant turned out to have carried out the deed at the behest of associates of Harding, mainly by her then husband and two other "colleagues", I hesitate to call them friends. This documentary is about the attack, its implications, and mainly whether or not Harding, who initially denied knowledge of the planned attack, was involved.
The incident broke news internationally and became one of the biggest sports scandals of the 1990's, along with the O. J. Simpson case. Before authorities had gathered all the evidence, Harding won the 1994 U. S. Figure Skating Championships and also a spot on the US Olympic team. While both Kerrigan and Harding would then represent the US team in Norway for the 1994 Winter Olympics, authorities continued to investigate the case. Would the incident not only jeopardize Harding's Olympic prospects but also jeopardize her victory at the US Championships?
Harding has claimed on numerous occasions the incident wasn't entirely her fault because the people around her wanted "pieces of her". She was raised by an abusive mother and then paired herself with an abusive husband. She claimed she didn't know there were any alternatives to having people in her life who were abusive. It seems that when she became successful it was time for her to find people who were more supportive but that's not what she did. Shouldn't she have known better? That's the question which will always linger. But that aside, if she knew beforehand of the attack, she should have tried to stop it. However, as in "The Ides of March", if you make this kind of a monumental mistake, you lose the right to play. And Harding did. She was stripped of her US Championship medal and was ultimately banned for life from competitive skating.
Tonya Harding was the bad girl skater from a lower middle-class family out of Oregon while her skating rival Nancy Kerrigan was the "good girl" from New England, even though the latter's father was a welder. Kerringan was beloved of the judges at skating events while Harding felt there was a double standard because she was from the lower middle class. However, she didn't do herself any favors by being the obnoxious girl who didn't know how to behave herself. She had a reputation for cursing at the judges when she didn't feel her score was fair.
Obnoxiousness aside, Harding was one of the greatest American skaters of her generation, and possibly had a shot at Olympic Gold. She was going to compete against Nancy Kerrigan at the 1994 U. S. Figure Skating Championships. The top award-winners were almost guaranteed to get spots on the US Olympic team in 1994, the strange year when the winter Olympics would be held in two consecutive even years. (In the early 1990's the Olympic committee had decided to hold the summer and winter Olympics two years apart instead of in the same year, so that every two years, rather than every four, Olympics would be held. That meant, the Winter Olympics would occur one time in consecutive even years, in this case 1992 and 1994, and thereafter every four years.)
On January 6, 1994, on the eve of the US Skating Championships, Nancy after a routine practice at a skating rink, was assaulted on her knee/thigh by an assailant wielding a police baton. It was quickly revealed the assailant turned out to have carried out the deed at the behest of associates of Harding, mainly by her then husband and two other "colleagues", I hesitate to call them friends. This documentary is about the attack, its implications, and mainly whether or not Harding, who initially denied knowledge of the planned attack, was involved.
The incident broke news internationally and became one of the biggest sports scandals of the 1990's, along with the O. J. Simpson case. Before authorities had gathered all the evidence, Harding won the 1994 U. S. Figure Skating Championships and also a spot on the US Olympic team. While both Kerrigan and Harding would then represent the US team in Norway for the 1994 Winter Olympics, authorities continued to investigate the case. Would the incident not only jeopardize Harding's Olympic prospects but also jeopardize her victory at the US Championships?
Harding has claimed on numerous occasions the incident wasn't entirely her fault because the people around her wanted "pieces of her". She was raised by an abusive mother and then paired herself with an abusive husband. She claimed she didn't know there were any alternatives to having people in her life who were abusive. It seems that when she became successful it was time for her to find people who were more supportive but that's not what she did. Shouldn't she have known better? That's the question which will always linger. But that aside, if she knew beforehand of the attack, she should have tried to stop it. However, as in "The Ides of March", if you make this kind of a monumental mistake, you lose the right to play. And Harding did. She was stripped of her US Championship medal and was ultimately banned for life from competitive skating.
helpful•10
- classicalsteve
- Sep 1, 2021
Details
- Runtime1 hour 18 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.78 : 1
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