Tonya Maxene Price, popularly known as Tonya Harding, is an American reality television star, former boxer, and figure skater. Hardings was born in Portland, Oregon, and raised mainly by her mother.
Her mother took her to ice skating classes when she was three. Harding trained for a significant portion of her childhood and finally dropped out of high school to focus on the sport.
This article is a deep dive into the personal and professional life of Tonya Harding to find out her accomplishments.
Tonya Harding: Early Life And Education
Tonya Harding was born in Oregon in 1970 and was raised by her mother in East Portland. When Tonya was three, her mother took her to Diane Rawlinson, who trained her in figure skating. Tonya had begun skating at the age of three.
Tonya was born into a poor family and was forced to compete in the clothing that her mother sewed. She had a difficult childhood because her mother frequently tortured her physically and mentally.
Tonya began spending time with her father, Albert Gordon Harding, while she was in her early teens, and it was from him that she first learned about various automobiles.
During her adolescence, she started hunting and took part in several drag races.
Tonya, who attended Milwaukie High School, dropped out to focus completely on her profession as a figure skater. Later, she earned her General Equivalency Diploma and spent all of her time skatings.
Tonya Hardings: Figure Skating Career
Tonya kept up her training with Diane Rawlinson and started competing in various figure skating events across the country. She competed in the 1986 US Figure Skating Championships and came in sixth place. She then participated in the competition for three straight years.
When she won Skate America in 1989, she rose to notoriety as a figure skater. Tonya’s breakthrough occurred in 1991, the year she won the US Championship after successfully landing her first triple axle.
She once more landed a triple axel during the World Championships, which were held in the same year, becoming the first American woman and just the second woman in figure skating history to accomplish so.
She eventually became an expert at the triple axle leap after performing it three times in the 1991 Skate America competition. She not only made history by landing a triple axle in a short program, but she also made history by landing two successful triple axles in the same competition. She then made history by landing the first-ever triple axle with a double-toe loop.
After 1991, Tonya had a bad run and was never again able to cleanly land the renowned triple axel leap. She twisted her ankle during a practice session for the 1992 US Championship,
which prevented her from winning the event. Her later appearances in Winter Olympics and other competitions were failures which led to her dropping her name from the World championship team.
In 1994, she managed to win the US Figure Skating Champions, which were held in Detroit, and she got back to victory. Even though her triumph secured her a spot in the 1994 Olympic team, observers felt that something was off about it.
Tonyas’s major rival Nancy Kerrigan was inexplicably attacked just before the National Championship, which helped her win the match.
Tonya Hardings: Television Career
Harding was cast in the 1994 action movie Breakaway along with Teri Fruichantie and Joseph Joe Estevez. Harding also made appearances on television including in 2002 on The Weakest Link: 15 Minutes of Fame Edition and in March 2008 as a commentator for TruTv’s tryTv Presents: Worlds Dumbest.
Harding has held jobs as a welder, painter, and Sears Hardware clerk after quitting boxing and figure skating. She claimed to be a painter and deck builder as of 2017. She resides in Vancouver, Washington.
Harding appeared in a DirectAuto Insurance television commercial that aired in the United States in August 2019.
Tonya Harding: Boxing Career
Harding defeated Paula Jones in a boxing match on the Fox Network Celebrity Boxing show in 2002. She made her official debut in women’s professional boxing on February 22, 2003, she was defeated by Samantha Browning in a four-round split decision on the undercard of Mike Tyson vs Clifford Etienne.
Rumors that Harding was having financial problems and needed to fight in the ring to get money led to the beginning of her boxing career.
After participating in some competitions, Hardings was forced to leave her boxing career due to asthma.
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Tonya Hardings: Personal Life
Harding had a relationship with Jeff Gillooly when she was 15 and they got married in 1990. The couple got separated in 1993 after three years of married life.
In 1995, she married Michael Smith. The relationship ended in the next year and they were legally divorced. During the 2000s, Harding had a relationship with Darren Silver. In 2010, she was married to a 43-year-old man named Joseph Price. The couple had a son, Gordon.
Tonya Hardings: Controversies
During the 1994 National Championship, Nancy Kerrigan was attacked by Harding’s bodyguard and her ex-boyfriend. Nancy was her rival and to prevent her from competing Harding planned such an attack on her.
The attackers were arrested by the police and they gave testimony against Tonya. Later, Tonya was found guilty and put in prison for three years with a fine of $100,000. The incident made her leave her figure skating career.
Tonya and her then-husband Jeff Gillooly were shown in stills from a sex tape that was published in September 1994 by Penthouse magazine. The video, which Jeff sold to a television program, gained enormous attention and elevated Tonya’s profile. She mostly earned public attention through several controversies.
Tonya Harding decided to pursue a career in boxing after becoming embroiled in several controversies.
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