Tonya Maxine Harding was born on November 12, 1970 in Portland, Oregon.
Tonya is the product of rough and unstable upbringing and she was also plagued by asthma which she exacerbated by smoking, but in spite of these disadvantages she went on to become a top American figure skater.
By the age of fifteen she was already known for her natural athletic ability and for being the highest jumper and the fastest spinner of all female skaters and in 1988 Tonya became the first American woman to be given a Russian award for skating.
The high point in Tonya's career was in 1991 when she won her first National title at the Target Center in Minneapolis at the Senior Nationals. She skated two perfect programs and was awarded a 6.0 for technical merit which was the first perfect score any woman had been awarded in nearly two decades.
Tonya also became the first American woman and only the second woman in the world to complete the 'triple axle' and her record still stands.
She then went on to 'Worlds' where she performed this incredibly difficult jump once again and garnered a further silver medal. Soon after that she performed it once again at 'Skate America' breaking two world records and winning the championship.
Sadly, she went on to became notorious for her part in a conspiracy to injure a fellow competitor, Nancy Kerrigan at a practice session during the 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. She apparently tried to put Nancy out of the competition by getting a bunch of thugs, one of whom was her husband Jeff Gillooly to hit Kerrigans knee with a metal pipe.
Tonya appeared in a movie called 'Breakaway' and also recorded an original song which she dedicated to the victims of the Oklahoma bombing tragedy.
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