Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 28, 1994 TAG: 9402010252
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Tonya Harding's ex-(they-were- back-together-again-but-presumably- aren't- now)-husband Jeff Gillooly reportedly wants to cut a deal with prosecutors, hoping to reduce the sentence for his alleged role in the Nancy Kerrigan attack by giving up his wife, national figure-skating champion and Kerrigan rival Tonya Harding.
If Harding is implicated, arrested and charged, her attorney says, she should be able to keep her place on the U.S. figure-skating Olympic team, a spot she won by skating to the national championship - the competition Kerrigan missed because some dim bulb allegedly hired by Harding's none-too-bright bodyguard whacked her in the knee.
Tonya on Olympic ice? Please, no. Not if she's charged in this ludicrous sleaze-crime. And even if she isn't, she should take herself out, in fairness to Kerrigan and the sport.
Yes, it would be a loss to the competition, not to mention the media frenzy, if she were to bow out. Harding is an amazing athlete, a gritty, determined, worthy competitor in world-class skating. And her personal history - the scrappy kid who sailed on a thin blade from a hard-luck childhood onto the world stage - has a special appeal for Americans inclined to idealize up-by-the-bootstrap, or skate-lace, achievements.
And a charge, of course, is just an allegation. Gillooly would not be the first person to falsely implicate someone else - some bigger fish - in exchange for more lenient treatment. Harding, who has steadfastly maintained that she had no involvement in arranging the attack on Kerrigan, could be telling the truth.
Tough luck. The Constitution guarantees due process in the court system, not a slot on the U.S. Olympic team. Unsatisfying as a world skating competition might be without the talented Harding, it would be outrageous farce f+iwitho her if allegations are substantial enough to lead to formal charges. And even if they aren't, at the very least she holds some responsibility for gathering around herself, by hire or marriage, the human slime implicated in the crime.
Displays of sportsmanship and goodwill in the cutthroat, back-stabbing world of figure skating are as phony as the sparkling glitter on the athletes' costumes, cynical insiders say. OK, it's naive to expect that, after years of grueling training and sacrifice, cheery winners and losers will skate off the ice arm and arm in a cloud of genuine bonhomie after competing for the prize of a lifetime. Still, a certain basic, level of sportsmanship has to be observed.
Harding says she learned about her camp's connection with the attack on Kerrigan after the fact, and - at long last and only after reports that the "ex" was preparing to tell all - she admits she erred in failing to go immediately to authorities with what she knew. But she's sorry, and she'd like to go for the gold anyway.
Too bad. Her lack of candor to this point hardly lends her much credibility. There is enough question about her role that Harding shouldn't be on the team.
by CNB