Nancy Kerrigan

They were both back on the ice this week, America's two women Olympic figure skaters, practicing for the first time since the advent of the Kerrigan-Harding saga.There on the East Coast was Nancy Kerrigan -- whose elegant style has drawn comparison with Katharine Hepburn -- managing to complete a half axel. And there on the West Coast was Tonya Harding -- who has compared herself to basketball's bad boy, Charles Barkley -- landing a perfect triple axel.Both back on the ice.But the question now is: Will they both stay on the ice?

Reality replaced fantasy. And with it comes a nightmare for the dream world of figure skating. Maybe it was all an illusion that's gone. Robbed. Destroyed. Wiped out.It's almost tantamount to taking away the innocence of a little girl's childhood, a make-believe time of playing with dolls and enjoying lollypops. Now what's around her is an environment replete with degradation and potential anarchy, where rules are there only to be broken.Tonya Harding, for the record, earned first place on the U.S. Olympic team but, because of what happened, she's under a cloud of suspicion.

The Harding camp's assault on Nancy Kerrigan is what much of the world expects from this country.Uh-oh. While the independent counsel on the Whitewater affair was being picked, Bill calmly took over leadership of the world.

You have heard the latest on Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. These days, the news is not enough. Now we must discover the trend that drives the news. A Newsweek cover awaits.Let's see. Tonya Harding's ex-husband and bodyguard hired a hit man, as alleged, to whack rival figure-skating queen Nancy Kerrigan's knee because:* Greed, supposedly dead in the '80s, is making a comeback, starting with winter sports.* There's something about skating on ice, as professional hockey surely proves, that provokes violent behavior.

Here are the questions that will linger over Tonya Harding's career:Did she know about the plot to whack Nancy Kerrigan's knee?Was she involved?She says she wasn't. The police and FBI haven't charged her.We are supposed to believe them. You know the deal. In this country, you are innocent until proven guilty. Harding isn't even implicated right now. It's possible she never will be.But people are going to wonder. You know they are.How could they not?Her bodyguard was arrested yesterday, and, according to news accounts and Portland, Ore., officials, her ex-husband is under investigation.

FIGURE skater Nancy Kerrigan's clubbing last week in Detroit reminded me of Eddie Waitkus and what it takes today to get our attention when it comes to random acts of violence.Waitkus played baseball when Truman and Eisenhower were in the White House. He was a better-than-average first baseman, initially for the Chicago Cubs and later the Philadelphia Phillies. But he is most remembered for a violent incident involving a "fan" that shocked the nation.Waitkus, a bachelor, was invited to a room at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago late one June night in 1949 by a 19-year-old woman he did not know.

A NATO that will not save Bosnia from Serbia cannot protect Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Albania and Lithuania from Russia.If Nancy Kerrigan is not on the U.S. Olympic team, the creep who attacked her is rewarded.Only an independent counsel appointed by judges can reassure the nation on the Clinton-Whitewater business -- but the Dole crew killed that system.

DETROIT -- Finally, the night belonged to Tonya Harding, and to Nancy Kerrigan.It was Harding who skated and won last night's women's title at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.And it was Kerrigan, injured by an unknown male assailant and unable to skate, who was awarded a second berth with Harding at next month's Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway.Out of the running and out of the Olympics were Michelle Kwan, a 13-year-old who was second, Nicole Bobek, third, and Elaine Zayak, fourth.

The U.S. Figure Skating Association must put Nancy Kerrigan on the U.S. team at the Olympics in Norway next month if she is able to skate. Otherwise, the man who attacked her in Detroit on Thursday would be rewarded, and other athletes put at greater risk. Ms. Kerrigan was favored to retain her U.S. championship in Detroit, and one of two spots on the team, before the criminal, terrorist or lunatic assaulted her by hitting her right knee with a blunt instrument.Last April 30, Guenter Parche stabbed the No. 1 woman tennis player, Monica Seles, on court in Hamburg, Germany.

DETROIT -- There was a wedge of security guards in front of her and a pack of minicams behind her, and Nancy Kerrigan kept walking, out of Joe Louis Arena, out of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.She was hurt. And upset. But mostly, a day after an unidentified male assailant bashed her right knee with one swing of a metal bar, she was in a state of disbelief."It's hard to say how long I'll look over my shoulder and see who is behind me," Kerrigan said yesterday.Kerrigan's attacker remained at large and her dream of skating in the 1994 Winter Olympics remained on hold.