Tonya Maxene Harding (born November 12, 1970) is a former U.S. figure skater. She attended Milwaukie High School, in Milwaukie, Oregon.
Harding began skating when she was just three years old, and it became apparent that she had a lot of talent. After placing first in a few other big skating competitions, she won the ladies’ singles top spot at the 1991 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. She also placed silver in that year’s World Figure Skating Championships, becoming the first American woman to land a triple axel at an international skating event. This was followed by an appearance at the 1992 Winter Olympics.
Harding’s career came to an end in 1994. In January of that year, skating rival Nancy Kerrigan was injured in an attack planned by Harding’s ex-husband and a co-conspirator. Harding went on to place first in that year’s U.S. Figure Skating Championships – and both women competed on the 1994 U.S. Olympic team – but the honor was short-lived. Harding pled guilty to hindering the investigation into Kerrigan’s attack and was banned for life from the U.S. Figure Skating Association. She was also stripped of her 1994 U.S. Championships title.
In 2003, following a successful bout on Fox’s Celebrity Boxing, Harding became a professional boxer. The results were mixed (3 wins and 3 losses), and she quit the following year. In 2017, Margot Robbie starred as Harding in the biographical film, I, Tonya.