Tonya Harding Pleads Guilt On Attack Of Nancy Kerrigan

On March 16, 1994 Olympic Figure skater Tonya Harding pleads guilty to a felony attack on Nancy Kerrigan. The attack occurred just before the 1994 Winter Olympic Games.

Kerrigan was an American figure skating champion, a two-time Olympian, and a two-time Skate America Champion.

Nancy Kerrigan in 1993.

In 1991 she won the U.S. Figure Skating Championships and placed second in the World Championships. She was the second woman, and the first American woman, to complete a triple axel jump in competition. She was also the first woman to successfully execute two triple axels in a single competition as well the first ever to complete a triple axel combination with the double toe loop.

Harding became notorious in conjunction with the January 6, 1994 attack on her competitor Nancy Kerrigan. The widely publicized attack took place during a practice session for the 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Detroit. Her ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, and her bodyguard, Shawn Eckhardt, hired Shane Stant to break Kerrigan's right leg so that she would be unable to skate.

Tonya Harding in 1993.

He followed her to Detroit after failing to find her at her training rink in Massachusetts, and struck her on the thigh a few inches above the knee with an asp baton. Her leg was only bruised, not broken, but the injury forced her to withdraw from the national championship. Harding won that event, and they both were selected for the 1994 Olympic team.

After Harding admitted to helping to cover up the attack, the USFSA and United States Olympic Committee initiated proceedings to remove her from the Olympic team, but she retained her place after threatening legal action. She finished eighth in Lillehammer, while Kerrigan, by then fully recovered from the injury, won the silver medal.

The attack on Kerrigan and the news of Harding's alleged involvement led to a media frenzy of saturation news coverage. She appeared on the cover of both Time and Newsweek magazines in January 1994. Reporters and TV news crews attended her practices in Portland and camped out in front of Kerrigan's home. CBS assigned Connie Chung to follow her every move in Lillehammer. Counting 400 members of the press jammed into the practice rink in Norway, Scott Hamilton complained, "The world press was turning the Olympics into just another sensational tabloid event". The tape-delayed broadcast of the short program at the Olympics remains one of the most watched telecasts in American history.

On Feb. 1, 1994, Gillooly accepted a plea bargain in exchange for his testimony against Harding. Gillooly, Stant, Eckhardt, and getaway car driver Derrick Smith all served time in prison for the attack. Eckhardt was sentenced to 18 months in prison for racketeering but was released four months early in September 1995.

Harding avoided further prosecution and a possible jail sentence by pleading guilty on March 16 to conspiring to hinder prosecution of the attackers. She received three years probation, 500 hours of community service and a $160,000 fine. As part of the plea bargain, she was also forced to withdraw from the 1994 World Figure Skating Championships and resign from the USFSA. On June 30, 1994, after conducting its own investigation of the attack, the USFSA stripped her of her 1994 U.S. Championships title and banned her for life from participating in USFSA-run events as either a skater or a coach.

The USFSA concluded that she knew about the attack before it happened and displayed "a clear disregard for fairness, good sportsmanship and ethical behavior". Although the USFSA has no control over professional skating events, she was also persona non grata on the pro circuit because few skaters and promoters would work with her. Consequently, she failed to benefit from the pro skating boom that ensued in the aftermath of the scandal.

Harding continued to maintain that she was innocent and professed her disgust with the attack, even going so far as to get an angel tattooed on her lower back, allegedly as a symbol of her innocence.

In her 2008 autobiography, The Tonya Tapes, she said that she wanted to call the FBI to reveal what she knew, but refused when Gillooly allegedly threatened her with death following a gunpoint gang rape by him and two other men she did not know. He subsequently changed his name to Jeff Stone and called the allegations "utterly ridiculous". Eckhardt, who legally changed his name to Brian Sean Griffith following his release from jail, died of natural causes at age 40 on Dec. 12, 2007.

After her figure skating career Harding got into boxing and had a record of 3-3. She also dabbled in auto racing and set a land speed record. On August 12, 2009, Harding set a new land speed record for a vintage gas coupe with a speed of 97.177 mph driving a 1931 Ford Model A, named Lickity - Split, on the Bonneville Salt Flats.

Winter Olympics Close At Squaw Valley

On Feb. 28, 1960, the eighth winter Olympic games close at Squaw Valley in Tahoe, Calif.

The Olympic Rings are still proudly on display at Squaw Valley ski resort in Tahoe, Calif.

Over 660 athletes from 30 nations participated at the Olympic Games in Squaw Valley, in 27 events in four sports.

The Soviet Union took home the most medals with 21, and the most Gold medals with seven. They also earned five Silver medals and nine Bronze medals.

The United States finished second in total medal count with 10, with three Gold medals, three Silver medals and four Bronze medals.

The Germans finished tied for the third most medaling country with Finland, but had the second most Gold medals behind the Soviet Union as the Germans took home four Gold medals. The Germans would also earn three Silver medals and one Bronze medal.

Finland also earned eight medals, including two Gold medals, three Silver medals and three Bronze medals.

The 1960 Winter Olympics were special because for the first time women were allowed to compete in speed skating. The Soviet Union had requested the inclusion of women's speed skating events in the program for the 1956 Games, but the IOC rejected the request.

The issue was revisited for the 1960 Games, and since women had been competing internationally since 1936 and there was a World Championship for women's speed skating, the IOC agreed to four events; 500, 1,000, 1,500, and 3,000 meters.

The events were held on the Squaw Valley Olympic Skating Rink, which was an outdoor skating oval, and featured artificial ice, a first for the Olympic speed skating competition. Given the altitude and the artificial ice, the rink was the fastest in the world, as evidenced by Norwegian Knut Johannesen’s world record in the 10,000-meter event. At 15:46.6 he was the first skater ever to break the 16-minute barrier, and eclipsed the previous world record by 46 seconds.

Despite Johannesen's victory, the Soviets dominated the speed skating events, winning all but two of the races. Yevgeny Grishin won both the 500 and 1,500-meter races, though he shared the 1,500 meter gold medal with Norwegian Roald Aas.

Lidiya Skoblikova from the Soviet Union was the other double gold medalist, when she won the 1,500 and 3,000-meter events. Polish skaters Helena Pilejczyk and Elwira Seroczyńska placed second and third in the 1,500-meter event, earning Poland's only medals of the Games and becoming just the second and third Poles ever to win Winter Olympic medals.

The ice hockey tournament took place at Blyth Arena and the Squaw Valley Olympic Skating Rink. Controversy over the amateur status of some of the players overshadowed the event. Canadian Olympic officials began to protest the use of "professional amateurs" by Eastern Bloc countries, and especially the Soviet Union.

They alleged that the Soviets were giving their elite hockey players phantom jobs in the military that allowed them to play hockey full-time, which gave Soviet teams an advantage that they used to dominate Olympic hockey tournaments for nearly 30 years.

This issue started coming to light during the 1960 Games and would culminate in a Canadian boycott of Olympic hockey tournament at the 1972 Winter Olympics. The team from the United States won an improbable gold medal, defeating the favored Canadian and Soviet teams, who took silver and bronze respectively.

This was the first Olympic gold medal in ice hockey for the United States and it would mark the last time a Soviet team would not win the Olympic tournament until the United States victory at the 1980 Winter Olympics.

USA Hockey Team Thrashes Nagano

On Feb. 19, 1998, that the United States Men’s Olympic hockey team was found responsible of thrashing their hotel rooms at the Olympic Athletes Village in Nagano.  The damage to the room was done just a few hours after the team was ousted from the tournament by the Czech Republic by a 4-1 score.

A few members of Team USA hockey at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano.

Although the vandalism was minor (broken chairs, dented walls and doors, emptied fire extinguishers) it was a senseless and childish act by the sore loser Americans.  None of the players ever came forward and confessed and therefore no one was ever punished, however, Chris Chelios the captain of the team did write a check for $3000 out of his own pocket to cover the damages.

The 1988 Olympics also saw the Fifty-seven nations and 1,423 athletes participated in the Games, with five countries making their debut in the Winter Olympics. Super-G made its Olympic debut, while curling, freestyle skiing, short track speed skating and disabled skiing were demonstration sports. Speed skating was held in an indoor rink for the first time and the Games were extended to 16 days.

The other sports involved with the Olympic Games were Apline Skiing, Biathalon, Bobsleigh, Cross-country skiing, Figure Skating, Luge, Nordic Combined and Ski jumping.

As at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, the only previous Games hosted in Canada, the host country failed to produce any gold medals.

The Soviet Union won the most medals of any country with 29 total, including the most Gold medals with 11, nine Silver medals and nine Bronze medals.

The East Germans won the second most amount of medals, with 25 total, including nine Gold medals, the most Silver medals of any country with 10 and six Bronze medals.

Switzerland rounded out the top three countries with medals earning 15 total, tallying five of each Gold, Silver and Bronze medals.

The United States tied for eighth most medals with six, earning two Gold medals, one Silver medal and three Bronze medals.

Matti Nykänen won all three ski jumping events. Yvonne van Gennip won three gold medals in speed skating, setting two world records. Alberto Tomba won two gold medals in alpine skiing.

Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards and the Jamaica national bobsled team entered with little experience but gathered massive media attention, resulting in qualification rules for later Games.

“Cool Runnings” the movie starring John Candy was about the 1988 Jamaican bobsled team.

Second Winter Olympics: St. Moritz

On Feb. 19, 1928, the second Winter Olympic games close at St Moritz, Switzerland.

The 1928 Games were the first true Winter Olympics held on its own as they were not in conjunction with a Summer Olympics. The preceding 1924 Games were retroactively renamed the inaugural Winter Olympics, though they had been in fact part of the 1924 Summer Olympics. All preceding Winter Events of the Olympic Games were the winter sports part of the schedule of the Summer Games, and not held as a separate Winter Games. These games also replaced the now redundant Nordic Games, that were held quadrennially since early in the century.

Athletes from 25 nations competed at these Games, up from 16 in 1924. Nations making their first appearance at the Winter Olympic Games were Argentina (first participation of a delegation coming from a country belonging to the Southern Hemisphere), Estonia, Germany, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Romania.

The events in the St. Moritz games included Bobsleigh, Figure skating, Ice hockey, Nordic skiing, Cross-country skiing, Nordic combined, Ski jumping, Speed skating, Tobogganing (skeleton).

 

The Demonstration sports included Military patrol and Skijoring.

Fluctuating weather conditions made these Olympics memorable. The opening ceremony was held in a blizzard.[10] In contrast, warm weather conditions plagued the Olympics for the remainder of the Games, requiring cancellations of one event with temperatures as high as 25 °C (77 °F).

Highlights from the games included Sonja Henie winning her first gold medal in women's figure skating.

An Olympics Gold medal from the 1928 Winter Games in St. Moritz.

Ivar Ballangrud won the Olympic title in the 5,000m speed skating and Clas Thunberg won the 500m and the 1,500m.

Norway collected the most medals at the games with 15 total, earning six Gold medals, four Silver medals and five Bronze medals.

The United States earned the second most medals with six, collecting two Gold, two Silver and two Bronze medals.

Sweden earned the third most medals with five, two Gold, two Silver and one Bronze medal.

The single bronze medal won by Switzerland is the lowest output by a host nation at an Olympics.

Lake Placid Winter Olympics Kick Off

On Feb. 14, 1980, the thirteenth Winter Olympic games, a multi-sport event which was celebrated from Feb. 13 through Feb. 24 in Lake Placid, New York. This was the second time the Upstate New York village hosted the Games, after 1932. 

The only other candidate city to bid for the Games was Vancouver-Garibaldi, British Columbia, Canada; which withdrew before the final vote.

The mascots of the Games were "Roni" and "Ronny", two raccoons. The mask-like rings on a raccoon's face recall the goggles and hats worn by many athletes in winter sports.

The sports were played at the Olympic Center (later renamed Herb Brooks Arena), Whiteface Mountain, Mt. Van Hoevenberg Olympic Bobsled Run, the Olympic Ski Jumps, the Cascade Cross Country Ski Center, and the Lake Placid High School Speed Skating Oval.

The East Germans won the most medals with 23 total including nine Gold medals, seven Silver medals and seven Bronze medals.

The Soviet Union had one less medal than East Germany with 22, but had the most Gold medals with 10. They also had earned six Silver medals and six Bronze medals.

The United States finished third in total medal count with 12, earning six Gold medals, four Silver medals and two Bronze medals.

The most notable highlight of the Games involved the United States men's ice hockey team. The team was composed mostly of collegiate players and was not predicted to advance beyond group play.

They won the gold medal, defeating the heavily favored Soviet team and Finland in the medal round. The United States team's 4–3 win over the Soviet team, which came into the 1980 Games having won four consecutive Olympic gold medals, became known as the "Miracle on Ice" in the U.S. press.

The win captured the hearts of Americans during a time of Cold War tensions, even though it was the win against Finland that captured the gold medal. A film about the event, called Miracle, was released in 2004.

Other notable highlights included

Lake Placid 1980 marked the first use of artificial snow in Olympic competition.

Cyprus made their Olympic debut at the 1980 Winter Olympics. The People's Republic of China and Costa Rica both made their Winter Olympic debut. The Republic of China had boycotted the Games over the IOC's recognition of the PRC as "China", and its request for the Republic of China to compete as "Chinese Taipei".

Sweden's Ingemar Stenmark won both the giant slalom and the slalom.

Hanni Wenzel won the women's giant slalom and slalom, making Liechtenstein the smallest country to produce an Olympic champion.

Ulrich Wehling of East Germany and Irina Rodnina of the USSR won their respective events for the third time.

Aleksandr Tikhonov of the USSR earned his fourth straight gold medal.

Nikolay Zimyatov of the USSR earned three gold medals in cross-country skiing.

Eric Heiden of the United States won 5 gold medals in speedskating (500m, 1,000m, 1,500m, 5,000m and 10,000m), setting 4 Olympic records and 1 world record (10,000m) in the process. Heiden was the first to win 5 individual gold medals at one Winter Games.

Robin Cousins won gold for Great Britain in the men's singles figure skating.

The closing ceremonies were held indoors at the Herb Brooks Arena.

In possibly the most dramatic duel of the games, Sweden's Thomas Wassberg edged Finland's Juha Mieto in the 15 km cross-country skiing by 0.01 seconds, the closest margin of victory ever in Olympic cross-country skiing. This led the International Ski Federation (ISF) to time all events to the nearest 1/10 second in the future.

This years' Winter Olympics in Sochi are kicking off and currently the United States is trailing only Norway in medal count with 12 to their Norwegians 14. It also marked only the third time in Olympic history that the United States swept the podium in a single discipline with three Americans atop the podium on Men's skiiing slopestyle.

Nagano Olympics Open

On Feb. 7, 1998, the Opening Ceremonies for the 18 Winter Olympic games open at Nagano, Japan.

Seventy-two nations and 2,176 participants, 1,389 men and 757 women, contested in seven sports and 72 events at 15 venues.

The Games saw the introduction of women's ice hockey, curling and snowboarding. National Hockey League players were allowed to participate in the men's ice hockey again.

The ’98 games are most remembered for Bjorn Dæhlie’s performance. He won three gold medals in cross-country skiing, making him the most-winning Winter Olympic competitor ever, becoming the first winter Olympics athlete to earn eight career gold medals and twelve total medals.

Alpine skier Hermann Maier survived a fall in the downhill and went on to win gold in the super-G and giant slalom.

The Netherlands won five of the ten speed skating events, including two each by Gianni Romme and Marianne Timmer. Canada beat Denmark in the women's curling final, securing the latter their first Winter Olympic medal ever.

Women's ice hockey was contested at the Olympic games for the first time ever, and the United States beat the Canadians 3–1 for the gold medal. United States went undefeated in the women's tournament. The Czech Republic defeated Russia by a score of 1–0 for the men's gold medal, while Finland won both the men's and women's bronze medals for ice hockey.

Cross-country skier Bjorn Dæhlie’s of Norway won three gold medals in Nordic skiing to become the first winter Olympian to earn eight career gold medals and twelve total medals.

Curling returned as an official sport, after having been demoted to a demonstration event after the inaugural Winter Games in Chamonix in 1924

Snowboarding debuted as an official sport.

Players from the NHL were able to compete in men's ice hockey due to a three-week suspension of the NHL season.

Tara Lipinski, 15, narrowly beat Michelle Kwan in women's figure skating to become the youngest champion in an individual event in the history of the Winter Olympics.

Alpine skier Hermann Maier (Austria) survived a fall in the downhill and went on to gold in the super-g and giant slalom.

Speed skaters Gianni Romme and Marianne Timmer won two gold medals each for the Netherlands; 5 out of 10 titles in speed skating went to the Netherlands.

Snowboarder Ross Rebagliati (Canada) won the gold medal, after initially being disqualified for testing positive for marijuana.

Azerbaijan, Kenya, the Republic of Macedonia, Uruguay, and Venezuela made their first appearance at the Olympic Winter Games.

Denmark won their first winter Olympic medal (and only one to date) when they won a silver medal in the women's curling event.

Australia won their first individual Winter Olympic medal when Zali Steggall won bronze in the women's slalom.

Germany won the most medals and the most gold medals in the Olympics with 29 total, 12 Gold medals, nine silver medals and eight bronze medals.

Norway finished second in total medal count and Gold medals, with 25 medals, 10 Gold, 10 Silver and five bronze.

Russia finished third in total medals and Gold medals, with 18 total, nine Gold, six Silver and three Bronzes.

Canada finished fourth overall in total medal count with 15, six Gold, five silver and four bronze.

The United States finished fifth in total medal count with 13 and tied for fourth in Gold medals with Canada, six. The United States also finished with three silver medals and four bronze medals.

Host country Japan finished seventh overall in total medal count with 10 medals, and tied for six with five Gold medals. Japan finished with only one Silver and four Bronze medals.

The United States were the leading nation in athletes appearing in the Olympic games with 186. The next closest was Japan with 156.

Eleven countries; Belgium, Bermuda, Brazil, Cyprus, India, Iran, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Luxembourg, Turkey, Uruguay and Venezuela only had one athlete compete in the games.

Fourteen countries; the Bahamas, Bolivia, Cambodia, Cameroon, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Gambia, Guam, Guinea-Bissau, Laos, Lebanon, Kuwait, Netherlands Antilles and Tajikistan all registered to take part in the games but did not send a team.

The 2014 Winter Games, the 22nd running of the Winter Olympics kicked off at Sochi in Russia last night with men’s figure skating. The games will continue through last February with most coverage coming on NBC.

Gretzky Scores 50

On Dec. 12, 1981, Wayne Gretzky makes history with his 50^th goal of the season.

Wayne Gretzky is no stranger to making history. He has done it plenty of times. One example came on this day in 1981 . Gretzky scored his 50^th goal of the season. It was just his 39^th game and that meant he had reached 50 faster than any player before him. He would finish the season with 92 goals.

The 92 goals would be the most Gretzky would score in a single season, although he was close two years later as he scored 87 goals in the 1983-1984 season.

Gretzky would finish his career as the all-time leading scorer in NHL history with 894 goals, 1,963 assists for 2,857 points in the regular season.

Gretzky would also excel in the playoffs, in his 20 seasons in the NHL, Gretzky made the playoffs 16 times with the Edmonton Oilers, Los Angeles Kings, St. Louis Blues and New York Rangers. He would score 122 goals, 260 assists for 382 points in just 208 playoff games.

Gretzky would also excel in the International format for his home country of Canada. In 63 games split between World Junior Championships, Canada Cup, World Championships, Rendez-vous ’87, the World Cup and the Winter Olympics in 1998, Gretzky would score 34 goals, 69 assists for a total of 103 points in 63 games.

After his playing career was over Gretzky went on to coach the Phoenix Coyotes from 2005-2009. While he was outstanding as a player he was not that as a coach, missing the playoffs every year, posting his best record in 2008 when he coached the team to a 38-37-7 record, finishing fourth in the Pacific Division with 83 points.