Tonya Harding

Tonya Maxene Price (née Harding; born November 12, 1970) is a retired American figure skater. A native of Portland, Oregon, Harding was raised primarily by her mother, who enrolled her in ice skating lessons beginning at age four. Harding would spend much of her early life training, eventually dropping out of high school to devote her time to the sport. After climbing the ranks in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships between 1986 and 1989, Harding won the 1989 Skate America competition. She was the 1991 and 1994 U.S. champion before being stripped of her 1994 title, and 1991 World silver medalist. In 1991, she earned distinction as being the first American woman to successfully land a triple Axel in competition, and the second woman to do so in history (behind Midori Ito). She is also a two-time Olympian and a two-time Skate America Champion. In January 1994, Harding became embroiled in controversy when her ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, orchestrated an attack on fellow US Olympian Nancy Kerrigan. After the 1994 Winter Olympics, Harding ultimately pleaded guilty to hindering the prosecution on March 16 and was banned for life on June 30, 1994 from the U.S. Figure Skating Association. In the early 2000s, Harding competed as a professional boxer, and her life has been the subject of numerous films, documentaries, books, and academic studies. In 2014, two documentary television films about Harding's life and skating career (Nancy & Tonya and The Price of Gold) were aired within two months of each other — inspiring Steven Rogers to write the darkly comedic biographical film I, Tonya (2017), starring Margot Robbie as Harding. In 2018, she was a contestant on season 26 of Dancing with the Stars, finishing in third place.