Nancy Kerrigan

Nancy Kerrigan (born 13 October 1969 in Woburn, Massachusetts) is a former American figure skater who started in a single run.

Life and career

Kerrigan is the daughter of Daniel Kerrigan and Brenda Schultz. She started at the age of six years with the ice skating at the ice rink her hometown Stoneham, where she grew up. Her two older brothers Michael and Mark played hockey, but hockey at that time was not an accepted sport for women, and so Kerrigan decided to figure skating. At eight, she took training hours. Kerrigan's father, a welder, had to temporarily take three jobs to finance her career, among other things, he drove the ice resurfacer in the ice arena in which trained his daughter. Until she was 16, she was coached by Theresa Martin, then briefly by Denise Morrissey and for the rest of her career from Evy and Mary Scotvold.

In 1991, Kerrigan reached the podium for the first time at the U.S. Championships. They finished in third place behind Tonya Harding and Kristi Yamaguchi. Thus, they qualified for their first World Cup, this was held in Munich. There, she immediately won the bronze medal behind their rural women Yamaguchi and Harding. It was thus part of the first World Cup podium in the women's competition, which consisted only of figure skaters of a country.

1992 Kerrigan improved both at the national championships like the World Cup for a place. She was national runner-up as well as Vice World Champion behind Kristi Yamaguchi. In her first Olympic Games she won the bronze medal in 1992 in Albertville behind Yamaguchi and the Japanese Midori Ito.

According to Yamaguchi's resignation Kerrigan was 1993 U.S. champion, but with an erroneous idea. At the World Championships in Prague, she won the short program, fell after a bad Kürleistung at the end but to fifth place back. Thus, the Ukrainian Oksana Bajul scored a surprise victory.

Special attention was an assassination attempt on Nancy Kerrigan on 6 January 1994 while training for the U.S. Championship. With an iron bar, the assassin Shane Stant injured figure skater at the knee so that she could not continue the contest. Commissioned and paid for was the assassin from the husband of her rival, Tonya Harding, Jeff Gillooly. Harding won the championship, but the title was stripped of her again, after their connections are known to attack.

Seven weeks after the attack, Kerrigan showed how she described it yourself, best two performances of her career. At the Olympic Games in Lillehammer she won the silver medal behind Oksana Bajul. She had won the short program, but lost the freestyle in a controversial 4:5 judges votes decision and by 0.2 points against Bajul.

After the Olympics, Kerrigan ended her amateur career, switched to the pros and ran for some ice revues such as the Champions on Ice and Broadway on Ice.

Kerrigan studied at Emmanuel College in Boston economy. They established a foundation for the visually impaired because their mother is also affected.

Kerrigan married in 1995 her manager Jerry Solomon. Together they have three children. Her father died in January 2010, allegedly after a fight with Kerrigan's brother Mark. This was sentenced to a prison term of two and a half years for assault.

Results

Documentary

• Mary Carillo: Nancy & Tonya. NBC 2014.

Works

• Nancy Kerrigan, Steve Woodward: Nancy Kerrigan: In My Own Words. Hyperion Books, New York 1996, ISBN 0-7868-1042-4.
• Nancy Kerrigan, Mary Spencer: Artistry on Ice: Figure Skating Skills and Style. Human Kinetics, Champaign 2003, ISBN 0-7360-3697-0.