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I wasn’t alive when Nancy Kerrigan was attacked, and as I grew up, all of my ’90s scandal education was devoted to OJ Simpson and Michael Jackson. Because of this, I didn’t know exactly what happened on the road to the 1994 Olympics until twenty years after the fact, when I first watched the ESPN ’30 for 30′ documentary The Price of Gold.
My God, I was obsessed. Why didn’t anyone ever tell me about this? The Kerrigan-Harding story had everything I needed from a national scandal: fame, Olympic glory, complicated female figures, class relations, and beautiful ’90s workout gear. Of course, we now know that these dramatic elements lend themselves perfectly to a feature film. I, Tonya, which hits theaters December 8, tells the absolutely insane story I missed out on for two decades. And even though Tonya Harding never took home gold in the winter of ’94, it looks like Margot Robbie might earn it for her irony-free portrayal of the controversial Olympic figure skater.
For me, The Price of Gold is the quintessential retelling of this infamous story, mainly because Tonya tells it herself. This alone makes the film worth a watch. But it’s what The Price of Gold does with Tonya’s interviews that makes the documentary unmissable.
Let’s get one thing straight: Tonya is not here to apologize. For anything. As she gives her interviews, the skating legend remains as unbelievably deft at avoiding blame as she was in the mid-nineties.
Meanwhile, Nancy Kerrigan notably chose to not give an interview for the 30 for 30 doc. This creates an interesting contrast: while an alleged perpetrator speaks her mind for 90 minutes, the victim remains silent. Thus, as the documentary nears its end and Harding begins to give some more controversial quotes about her former competitor, Kerrigan’s silence can make it appear as though Harding is just ranting to herself in the mirror (with what are essentially the same arguments she’s had for two decades).
But, somewhat miraculously, The Price of Gold still makes you feel things for this immovable Harding. Seriously! Mostly it’s confusion and contempt. But there’s room for just a little empathy, too. Especially when viewers see footage of a young Harding calling her abusive mother after a successful competition. “What a bitch,” says Harding, after her mother uses a potential moment of connection to point out a flaw in her near-perfect routine instead. (Harding’s mother, if you haven’t heard, is played by Allison Janney in the upcoming film. That makes watching The Price of Gold just that much more exciting.)
The Price of Gold offers an in-depth and mostly balanced look at a scandal that publicized two women to the point of caricature. But when the perceived villain of the story gets a platform to set the record straight, in the end she may work against herself and prove there may be some merit to how the media first painted her almost 24 years ago.
30 For 30: The Price of Gold airs tonight on ESPN2 and the Watch ESPN app at 10 p.m. ET.
