Thursday, January 6, 2011

An Anniversary To Remember




Today marks an important day in skating history.  No, I'm not referring to Johnny Weir coming out.  Seventeen years ago was the greatest day in lives of many skaters, coaches and especially the media: the attack on Nancy Kerrigan brought figure skating to the forefront and money to the pockets of anyone remotely associated with it.  What gets forgotten is that an innocent skater was attacked as she approached the peak of her career.  The attack brought such a delightfully ridiculous cast of characters to the forefront of the world's attention.

Anyone who lived through this remembers the round-the-clock attention paid to Tonya and Nancy during the lead-up to the 1994 Olympic Games.  Prior to the OJ Simpson Trial, there had never been a media circus quite like this.

Four years later, FOX delivered a blockbuster event on the eve of the Nagano Olympic Games.




2 comments:

  1. Well, she suffered the unthinkable but I still think Nancy is so fake and I still cannot seem to have any sympathy for her.

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  2. I have sympathy for Nancy. She didn't deserve to ba attacked. But I also have sympathy for Tonya. It was kind of heartbreaking to see her skate at that outdoor rink in Colorado, four years after the scandal. There was still so much power in her skating and she could still jump. It's too bad she couldn't handle the pressure of being at or near the top of the figure skating world and too bad she felt she could rely on her (considerable) talent, alone.

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