Do you know the Olympic story that shocked the world in 1994?
A figure skater was attacked and her main competitor was connected to it.
Welcome back to the Learn English Podcast, the podcast teaching English in context so you can learn naturally.
The Winter Olympics are occurring in Milan right now, and on today's episode I wanted to discuss one of the biggest Olympic stories in US history.
This story dominated the news right before the Lillehammer Games, and it is still talked about today.
And while you listen to the story, we're also going to give you real life English vocabulary terms, words and phrases that you will hear in conversation and see in the news when people discuss scandals.
If you're interested in learning more about this shocking story while building your English vocabulary, then follow along, because we're about to begin.
We're going to start with the people who were involved in the story.
They were both ice skaters or figure skaters.
Those are terms that you will hear when talking about this particular sport.
And they were trying to make the 1994 Lilyhammer Olympic Games.
The first skater was Nancy Kerrigan.
Nancy Kerrigan was a skater from Massachusetts and in the early 1990s she became well known for her skating style.
People often described her as graceful and elegant.
Graceful means moving in a very smooth and beautiful way, and elegant means calm, polished and controlled.
If you watch figure skating commentary in English, usually the commentators will use the term artistry.
If they say that a skater is very artistic or has a lot of artistry, that means they skate with this very elegant and beautiful style.
With female skaters in particular, you also hear the term ice princess.
Usually royalty are considered to be very elegant, very polished, very graceful.
And because those qualities are important in figure skating, you will hear this term.
So it means that a figure skater, of course, is on the ice, but that they look very beautiful, like a princess.
Nancy Kerrigan definitely had this artistic style.
She worked very hard, and by 1994, she was one of the best figure skaters in the country.
The media liked her image.
She was pretty, she was graceful, and she was very focused on skating.
She just looked like the perfect American figure skater.
The other person that was involved was Tonya Harding.
Tanya grew up in Oregon and had a very different childhood from Nancy Kerrigan's.
Her home life included poverty, abuse, and instability.
Her mother wasn't a great person and they did not have a good relationship.
Instability means not feeling safe or secure.
So Tanya Harding did not have a very safe childhood.
But she was extremely talented and she worked really hard.
She was a powerful figure skater who was really good at performing the jumping passes in figure skating.
Again, if you watch the commentary of figure skating in English, you will hear the term jumper.
The commentators will say that a particular figure skater is a jumper.
What that means is that they are very good at doing the jumping passes because they're so powerful, but they're not so good at the artistry.
Tanya was a jumper and she was the first American woman to ever land the triple axle.
If you are familiar with figure skating, you will know that jump.
If you're not, just know that that is a very difficult jump to do.
Even today, a lot of female figure skaters do not do this jump because it is so difficult.
And here is a clip of her landing that triple axle.
This shot made her famous, but she also got a lot of negative attention from the judges and from the media.
People focused on her background, her personal life and her appearance more than her actual figure skating.
I've seen interviews where Tonya Harding has said that judges actually came up to her and told her that they would not give her high scores because they didn't like her hair, her makeup, her costume or the way that she talked.
And this is also shown in the movie I, Tonya.
I out skated him today.
We also judge on presentation.
Over time, Tanya and Nancy started to be viewed as opposites.
Nancy was seen as elegant and polished.
Tanya was seen as difficult and rough.
Then on January 6th, 1994, everything changed.
Nancy Kerrigan was in Detroit and she was practicing at the U.S.
National Figure Skating Championships.
This is the competition where skaters compete for a chance to go to the Olympics.
There is footage of her practicing and then leaving the ice rink, going behind a curtain and walking down a hall.
What happened next was not caught on camera, but what happened was, As she walked down the hallway, a man suddenly ran up to her and hit her in the leg with a metal baton.
A metal baton is a stick that can be used as a weapon.
For example, police use batons when they are trying to control crowds.
After she was hit, she fell to the floor and began crying.
There is video footage of her on the ground and she is crying.
Why?
Why?
That video was shown on news media outlets around the world.
Nancy Kerrigan, the American figure skater who is widely considered a favorite to win a Winter Olympics gold medal, was attacked at a practice session for the US Figure Skating Championships.
This was an assault, which means it was a violent physical attack.
And it was done on purpose.
Someone had wanted to hurt her before the US championships.
Immediately, the search for the attacker began and people started wondering who did this and why.
Police began their investigation, which means that they started gathering evidence and trying to determine what happened.
And they discovered that the man who hit Nancy was called Shane Stant.
Police also learned that there were other people involved, including a driver and a planner of the attack.
And one of the people who was involved was Tonya Harding's ex-husband, Jeff Gilouli.
Their goal had been simple.
Injure Nancy, prevent her from skating at the championship and give Tanya a better chance at winning.
And that's when the media really went crazy.
You will hear this term media frenzy.
It means that one particular story is on all of the news channels all of the time.
The media really becomes obsessed with this story.
And that's what happened here.
This story was a media frenzy.
I was extremely young when this story happened, but even I remember that everyone was talking about it.
And here's Nancy talking about being followed by the media.
After being attacked like I was being followed around by all the camera crews and everybody wherever I went to the training, to the pool,
My world was completely out of control, like in a little bit crazy.
You know, it was crazy.
People started thinking that Tanya must have been involved in the attack, since it involved her ex-husband.
They thought that she was involved in some way.
Maybe she helped plan it.
Maybe she told them to go do it.
Her ex-husband also told police that she had been involved in planning the attack.
I'm telling investigators that Tonya Harding not only knew about the attack, but gave the final okay.
A lot of people thought she had to have been involved.
Tonya, though, denied that.
She said that she had nothing to do with this attack.
She did not know that it was going to happen and that her ex-husband did it all on his own.
Both what Jeff and Sean say is not true.
Anybody who knows me knows it's not true.
However, she later pled guilty to hindering the investigation.
To hinder an investigation means that you slow it down, that you prevent the police from completing their investigation.
So she hindered the investigation after she learned that her ex-husband was involved.
And she did this by hiding information from the police.
Her decision had serious consequences.
In the media and in public opinion.
Nancy Kerrigan was clearly seen as the victim and Tonya Harding was the villain.
Nancy received sympathy and support, while people wanted Tonya to fail.
Besides the media frenzy and all of the craziness that was going on, both women were allowed to compete the following month at the 1994 Olympics, and millions of people watched because they wanted to see what was going to happen between the two of them.
They did have to practice and warm up on the ice at the same time, but they seemed to try to avoid each other and did not talk to each other.
But we didn't really speak to each other, so it was very awkward and strange.
Nancy Kerrigan skated well.
She ended up winning the silver medal, while Oksana Bayul of Ukraine won the gold.
Tonya Harding, though, really struggled during her performance.
She was delayed coming onto the ice and she had a difficult start to her skating performance.
She said that the reason was because her skate lace broke and because it was an equipment issue, she was allowed to restart.
People were really angry at this.
They thought that she was just making up an excuse as to why she was skating so poorly.
And she ended up in eighth place.
After the Olympics, Tonya Harding was banned for life from skating and her career basically ended.
Nancy Kerrigan continued to skate.
She became a professional skater and stayed a beloved public figure.
A few years ago, this story came back up in the media because of the movie I, Tonya.
I, Tonya came out in 2017 and it stars Margot Robbie as Tonya Harding.
It shows the years from 1991 to 1993 from Tonya's perspective.
It adds context to her life and asks viewers to re-examine what they think about it class abuse and the story that the media tells them.
I will say that this was a little bit controversial because it did put Tanya back in the spotlight.
Margot Robbie is great in everything that she's in, and she plays this role very well.
It is a very well-made movie, but some people weren't happy with the attention that Tanya got from this.
She was doing photo shoots with Margot Robbie.
She was on the cover of magazines and on TV again.
And she even went to award shows.
Even though Harding has always said that she was not involved in the attack, there are a lot of people who just don't believe her.
And even if she didn't know of the attack before it happened, she still did hinder an investigation and pled guilty to a crime.
So there was some discussion about whether this movie was giving too much attention to Tonya Harding and if it was putting her in too much of a positive light.
But I also think that was the entire point of the movie to see if there was a different way of looking at the story, and with also looking at her and seeing what events led her to that place in her life.
But leave a comment and let me know what you think.
And also, if you have seen this movie, leave a comment and let me know.
I would recommend the movie.
Like I said, Margot Robbie is great in everything that she's in.
And this really just gives a different perspective to what happened around those Lilyhammer games.
I hope you enjoyed this episode and I hope you learned some real life vocabulary words that you can use in conversation.
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