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 this 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 this 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
Tanya 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 outskated 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 U
.S. 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 Tanya 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, 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.
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. Tanya 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 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 tanya 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. If you are enjoying
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