January 11, 2004|By NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
She won't talk about that now. Back then, Gillooly and one of his accomplices said Harding was in on the attack from the beginning. She steadfastly denied it. During the past 10 years, those shadowy former associates have tried to reach her, through those closest to her.
"Several have tried, but I ignored them," she said. "My brains have been scrambled a bit, but not that much. I've only talked with my father, plain and simple. And it's been a very smart choice. I'm not bitter at the figure skating people. Not at all. They made a choice. You have to live with it. You find something else."
She's lost the boyfriends, the husbands, settling for a kitten she calls Smalls. "I consider myself the Energizer bunny," Harding said. "I can pursue this career at least four years. I can make my bills right now. I'm making it, being selfish. It's about me. Just me and Smalls."
It's like a dream, that Olympic week in Lillehammer in late February 1994, about six weeks after the incident. After she threatened to sue, the U.S. Olympic Committee allowed Harding on the team, and she and Kerrigan were suddenly practicing on the same rink, at the same time.
Reporters and photographers jammed the little arena, arriving at 5 a.m. to reserve a spot. Kerrigan was still receiving therapy on her right knee, and nobody could promise a complete recovery.
"It was a very strange deal, a traumatic deal for all of us," remembered Kerrigan's coach, Evy Scotvold. "It was overwhelming."
By this time, Kerrigans' camp did not think much of Harding's chances. She was seen as a has-been, somebody who had frittered away her ample talents. She was a distraction of the worst sort. "We were beyond her," Scotvold said. "We knew she was an undisciplined athlete, that she had weight problems."
Scotvold said he feels sorry for Harding, to this day.
"She's embarrassed herself," he said. "She's a foolish person. There's a sadness of what she was and could have been. It speaks to the makeup of her family and background."
The media and fans picked sides back then, chose between the upright New Englander and the naughty Oregonian. The telecast of the short program drew the third-largest television audience in the country for any sports event, behind only two Super Bowls.
Beaten by Baiul
Harding melted down, with a heavy-footed, sloppy performance. She demanded and was granted a re-skate of her long program, because of a broken skate lace. It didn't help. Kerrigan skated like a professional during both routines, and was nosed out by Oksana Baiul, a ballerina from Ukraine who had suffered her own misfortunes.
"It was the most heroic thing I ever was part of as a coach," Scotvold said. "I will always respect Nancy so much for that. She was on a mission. She absolutely was going to fight back. She's always been my heroine."
While Harding, 33, reinvented herself, Kerrigan, 34, has followed a more conventional path for an ex-Olympian - with one or two twists. In 1995, she married her agent, Jerry Solomon, 14 years her elder. The couple has a 7-year-old son, Matthew, in Lynnfield, Mass. They hope to have more children, though People magazine reported last year that Kerrigan has suffered several miscarriages.
She is busy with pottery, with singing lessons, with charity work. She has skated in ice shows, has written an instructional book. She does voice-overs and commentary for several skating competitions. She rarely skates anymore, except to take her son out for a spin.
"There's not much time to practice," she said. "It's quite fun to be back on the ice, but the next day I'm sore. I'm a different person, and this is a different life now."
She hasn't spoken to Harding since the two met during a photo shoot in Lillehammer. At the time, Harding said to Kerrigan, "Can you believe all this fuss?"
Kerrigan answered, "No."
She was taught to restrain herself, because there was so much at stake. She harbors no ill feelings toward Harding. If anything, Kerrigan sounds angrier at the judges who voted, 5-4, to award the gold medal to Baiul.
"I was happy then for the silver," Kerrigan said. "But I look now at what we did, and technically I did so much more. It would have helped to get rid of all the crooked people in the sport."
Baiul was a sprite, an improviser. Kerrigan was a mature skater who sometimes appeared too practiced and mechanical. That perception cost her the gold and possibly millions of dollars.
Kerrigan remembers some chilling moments from that time, 10 years ago. She and Solomon were given copies of the FBI transcripts, including the interrogation of Stant. It included the bumbling strategies of Gillooly and his friends. One of the thugs, Shawn Eckardt, casually suggested killing Kerrigan.
"In the transcripts, it was almost comical the way they went about things," Kerrigan said. "Except it wasn't comical when they talked about wanting to kill me." After the assault in Detroit, Kerrigan screamed, "Why me?" on the floor of Cobo Hall. She said later she should have yelled, "Why anybody?"
That image of a sobbing, egocentric skater never entirely disappeared, especially after she was caught on camera complaining about Baiul and later at a Disney World parade.
In the end, though, she is both a victim and a heroine. Kerrigan performed at her best, at the most difficult moment of her life. Ten years later, she remains a picture of elegance. She has appointments to make, charities to support, a child to raise.
On this brisk day in New York, Kerrigan is still somebody very different from Harding, who has a bout coming up in Boise.
