However, she had also built a rivalry with fellow competitor Nancy Kerrigan, and that came to a head in January 1994 when Harding’s then-husband Jeff Gillooly and her bodyguard Shawn Eckhardt hired a man named Shane Stant to attack Kerrigan so she couldn’t compete in that year’s Winter Olympics.
Gillooly took a plea bargain deal to testify against Harding and served some prison time, and the couple was divorced later that year.
Her biggest accomplishment was winning the 1991 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, and she also competed in the 1992 Winter Olympics, finishing in fourth place.
In case you weren’t near a TV on a regular basis a little over two decades ago, Tonya Harding was one of its rising stars in the late 1980s and early 1990s.