In a rare pre-Olympic feat, America’s figure skating crisis dominates three popular weekly magazines. Time, Newsweek and People devote covers to Nancy Kerrigan versus Tonya Harding. This is publishing’s rendition of the triple axel.
At last check of local post offices, however, Harding’s mug shot is conspicuous by its absence among posters of the “most wanted” list. This oversight must aggravate vigilantes demanding she be removed from the U.S. squad before it sets foot in Lillehammer, Norway, for those holy Winter Games next month, and let her file the mother of all lawsuits.
Each day, a new firing squad emerges to protect the sanctity of the rink and advise punishment for Harding over the alleged plot to wound rival Kerrigan. Thus far, we have not heard any recommendations of the death penalty, but it’s early. What’s significant is that Harding has been convicted. Her sentence happens later, and we’ll be a stronger country only if she trades in her sequins for stripes.
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Not all the lynch mobs have emerged from the public sector. Several caring souls at the U.S. Figure Skating Association in Orlando have tripped over their blades trying to join the jury, too. One needn’t read between the lines to determine Harding would do all these straw bosses a favor by quitting, retiring or better yet, just vanishing. Only then could purity be restored to Olympic pomposity.
The scrambling has not been without its hilarious moments. A Claire Ferguson, president of this august body, has issued contingency plans on the possiblity-or is it hope?-that Harding is implicated in the attack. Ferguson then added that, if Kerrigan and Harding do indeed pirouette for dollars in Norway, “I can assure they won’t be rooming together.” When it comes to good housekeeping, Claire Ferguson is another Leona Helmsley, only funnier.
Of course, if we dare interrupt this communal daffiness for a moment of rationality, we could suggest there is an even more important matter at stake than the Olympic movement. It’s called due process. Most of us grew up living sheltered lives. One of our earliest lessons was that you’re innocent until proven guilty. Ice dancing is nice, but the Bill of Rights isn’t bad. It probably has more to do with the American flag than all the athletes who wear it.
There is a cloud of suspicion over Harding, and if she is indicted, she’s off the team and into the courtroom. But until then, if there ever is a then, she’s deserves to be protected as any other citizen. That’s the American way, just like winning a medal, hiring an agent and cashing in on your perspiration. What’s the Olympic tenet of international goodwill through sports worth if Harding can’t be treated fairly in her own back yard?
The Olympic ideal, debatable though it is, is also durable. It survived Hitler’s Games in 1936 and the Munich massacre in 1972. Bruce Kimball participated in the 1988 trials while facing drunken-driving charges that resulted in two deaths. In 1992, Jim Doehring won silver after pleading guilty to a drug charge. Ben Johnson got nailed for steroids, and then there are those men of tunnel vision, the boxing judges. Need we go on? No, but the Olympics will, even if Harding participates.
She’s a tough one, and that offends those stuffy Olympic ringheads. She swears, smokes, fixes cars and hangs out with unsavory characters. But if sports were to fumigate the ranks of all performers who didn’t wash behind their ears and say their prayers every night, there would be no teams, no leagues, no games and no Halls of Fame. An estimable athlete named Michael Jordan even admitted he could pick his friends more carefully. If Harding is condemned for saying she’d “kick Kerrigan’s butt” in Lillehammer, or for marrying a thug or because her presence in Norway might create a circus, then bring in the clowns.
If Harding is innocent, she skates. The Games will go on, because CBS just paid $375 million for them in 1998. In God We Trust.