Tonya Harding has been back on the ice twice a week since the spring, working on jumps and spins with a ceiling harness to keep her safe as she rebuilds her strength. On 12 December she will skate in front of a paying audience for the first time in years.
The show is called Tonya and Friends, and tickets at the Mountain View Ice Arena in Vancouver, Washington have already sold out, according to KOIN 6 News, the CBS affiliate that first reported the comeback. It is a public performance, not a competition. Harding’s lifetime ban from US Figure Skating Association-sanctioned events, imposed in 1994, has not been lifted.
Her coach is Dody Teachman, who first worked with her in the early 1990s. Teachman and a second coach have been guiding the training, and the harness is there to let Harding attempt the jumps that once defined her career without risking a bad fall.
Harding, who turns 56 on 12 November, told KOIN 6 that she had kept herself in shape in case a chance to perform came along.
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“The love of skating is the reason why I’ve always come back. I just can’t walk away from it,” she told the station.
Why the ban is still in place
Harding was the first American woman to land a triple Axel in competition, at the 1991 US Championships, the event she won that year. Three years later her competitive career was effectively over.
The attack on Nancy Kerrigan at the 1994 US Championships in Detroit, carried out by associates of Harding’s then-husband, triggered one of the biggest scandals in the history of American sport. Harding pleaded guilty to conspiracy to hinder the prosecution of the attackers and was banned for life by US Figure Skating later the same year.
That ruling has never been revisited. A public skating show at a community rink falls outside the governing body’s sanctioned circuit, so the 12 December exhibition does not challenge the ban in any way.
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What the show looks like
Harding’s story reached a new audience in 2017 with the film I, Tonya, which earned Allison Janney the Academy Award for best supporting actress for her portrayal of Harding’s mother. The Vancouver show leans into the public appetite that followed: it is billed as a straightforward skating exhibition, not a comeback tour.
Teachman has told KOIN 6 she is impressed by how her former pupil has looked in training, describing her as a force unto herself.
Harding told the station she simply wants a straightforward evening of skating for the audience that turns up, people coming out, having fun and watching a real skating show.
The Tonya and Friends exhibition is scheduled for 12 December at the Mountain View Ice Arena in Vancouver, Washington, with the sold-out ticket allocation already gone.
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