The Olympics features the best of the best going for the gold — and that can spark some heated rivalries. Arguably the most infamous Olympic rivalry occurred between professional figure skaters Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding . Their feud went so far that Harding’s ex-husband and bodyguard hired a man to take Kerrigan out of the 1994 games by attempting to bust her kneecaps.
The pair’s rivalry and the attack were the subject of the biopic I, Tonya , which came out in 2017. “I did, however, overhear them talking about stuff, where, ‘Well, maybe we should take somebody out so we can make sure she gets on the team.’ And I remember telling them, I go, ‘What the hell are you talking about? I can skate,’” Harding reflected during a 2018 sitdown with ABC News .
“This was, like, a month or two months before [the attack] but they were talking about skating and saying, ‘Well, maybe somebody should be taken out so then, you know, she can make it.'” While Harding denied having any involvement in the attack, she did plead guilty to conspiring to hinder prosecution. She was fined $150,000, sentenced to three years probation and 500 hours of community service in addition to being banned from the U.
S. Figure Skating Association. Keep scrolling to take a look back at some of the biggest feuds at the Olympics throughout the years: The 1988 Winter Olympics saw the birth of the rivalry between Witt and Thomas which was ultimately dubbed The Battle of the Carmens.
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