'Nancy & Tonya,' revisited
“The Price of Gold,” last month’s ESPN look back at the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan saga of 1994, was good at what it did, but it lacked one crucial element: Nancy Kerrigan.
Kerrigan opted out after agreeing to sit down exclusively with NBC – which also hired her to provide commentary on the figure skating in Sochi.
Sunday night at 7 the payoff for viewers arrives in the form of “Nancy & Tonya,’’ in which Mary Carillo interviews both skaters for a longform feature leading into the Closing Ceremony.
The NBC version benefits from Kerrigan’s voice, but offers less detail than did ESPN on the particulars of the plot to assault her and the ensuing coverup.
In both Harding emerges as the more compelling figure – albeit a somewhat sad, seemingly deluded one.
“This may have changed skating a little bit, but to me it changed media forever,’’ analyst Scott Hamilton says in the film, alluding to a circus that culminated in the highest non-Super Bowl TV rating in American sports history.
Says Kerrigan: “I would have liked to have just done what I had worked so hard for, and not have to be linked like that…as opposed to this horrific act.”