"30 for 30" The Price of Gold (TV Episode 2014) Poster

(TV Series)

(2014)

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7/10
Tragedy and culpability
paul2001sw-16 March 2022
The story of Tonya Harding, the figure skater from a dirt-poor background whose husband tried to take out a rival before the Olympics is both famous, and retrospectively, a source of comedy: the film 'I, Tonya' portrayed her as determined, dumb and ignorant. The documentary allows us to see that she never was stupid, and that her rejection by the figure skating establishment was not just a matter of class and beauty, but related to the fact she was an unashamed athlete in a "sport" that is really nothing of the sort. But Harding's self-awareness is nonetheless limited: she still seems angry that she had to suffer for her husband's actions (and angry, not with him, but with others who judged her for them). And she also doesn't seem to fully understand that what makes the luckiest of athletes their fortunes is never just their athletic gifts. Regardless of the degree of her involvement in the attack (she was ultimately convicted of involvment in a cover-up), I don't begrudge her a happy life today; but there's a strange sense of victim-hood in how she seems to see herself.
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8/10
Fascinating look back at a figure skating scandal
purrlgurrl14 May 2014
This is a fascinating look at a figure skating drama that obsessed America a generation ago. Figure skating is a controversial sport (there's a whining loser at every Olympics; the most recent is no exception) largely because its judging is highly politicized, image obsessed, and often just simply corrupt.

Despite recent reforms of its judging and scoring processes, figure skating hasn't changed (The Russian girl controversially won Olympic gold at the Russian hosted Olympics. Hmmm.). So a sport that appears ethereal is really just another version of scripted pro wrestling.

Tonya Harding pretty much laid bare the hypocrisy of figure skating long before her ex-husband's cohorts bashed Nancy Kerrigan's knee. She wasn't the crown princess anybody in figure skating wanted as a US or international champion. She never fit the desired image. She never fit in. She got as far as she did only because at one point her talent couldn't be denied.

I've never been convinced Harding masterminded or was involved in planning the attack on Nancy Kerrigan, and this film hasn't changed my opinion. Rather, I still strongly suspect she guessed immediately when it happened it was instigated by her ex-husband because of something she heard beforehand and either discounted or ignored. She covered for these losers because she did nothing to stop them.

Harding appears to be happy with a family and a stable life now. As for Kerrigan, her husband (who appears in the film) was a married man with two very young children when Kerrigan began an affair with him during her preparations for the Olympics. She wasn't the sweet innocent either figure skating or the film would have us believe.
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8/10
Skating on thin ice
Lejink4 March 2014
Fascinating retrospective documentary on the infamous attack on US figure-skater Nancy Kerrigan in the run-up to the 1992 Olympics, allegedly planned by rival skater Tonya Harding and her entourage. In the end, Harding pleaded guilty to knowledge after the fact, not beforehand, which act effectively kept her out of prison but also finished her ice-skating career at age 24 and become remembered ever since as the trailer-trash tomboy who would do anything to improve her gold medal chances.

Of course the premise is easily set up as the statuesque, clean-living Kerrigan is contrasted with the mousy, street-hardened Harding, although in truth they weren't that far apart in social class. Using loads of archive footage, the film skilfully builds up to the Olympic final, where Harding singly under-performed but ironically Kerrigan was surprisingly pipped to the gold herself.

It's a shame of course that Kerrigan chose not to participate in this film, after all, she was the victim, all the stranger when her husband and manager does in her place, but I suppose that left more time for Harding to fill the space, trying ever harder as it goes on to vindicate herself, even after a so-called childhood-friend comes down off the fence near the end to find her guilty too.

The film doesn't make the final judgement on Tonya Harding, leaving it to the viewer in the end to make up their own mind. Personally I find it hard to believe that Harding herself was behind such a hare-brained plot and probably got sucked in by her user-loser husband and his crowd, but sometimes she overplays her hand, especially when she tries to portray herself as the victim and significantly makes no modern-day apology to Kerrigan for what happened to her.

Sport truly is stranger than fiction I guess, the irony for both is that their own names will forever be linked together over the sabotage-plot that went wrong, with Harding in particular sharing the damning infamy of the likes of Ben Johnson, Mike Tyson and Hansie Cronje. Whether she deserves this vilification is for the viewer to decide, a task this well-balanced documentary makes more difficult than you'd imagine,
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Still Cold and Jealous
Michael_Elliott27 January 2014
30 for 30: The Price of Gold (2014)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Anyone over a certain age will certainly know the story of Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding. Perhaps everyone knows the story of the bizarre events where the two rivals were heading towards a showdown when Kerrigan was viciously attacked. Harding's husband and his friends were convicted of planning the attack and the big mystery going into the Olympics is what part Harding had in everything. I still remember these events quite well and over the past twenty-years I was always somewhat curious what Harding had to say on the matter. I didn't really have any feelings towards her one way or another and this includes watching her on those cheap TrueTV shows that she does. I didn't have any feelings towards her but that certainly changed after viewing this documentary. I'm not sure what the goal of director Nanette Burtstein was but if it was to make people hate Harding then she certainly succeeded. I really can't explain how much my blood was boiling while watching this film and not just because of the attack but how ignorant Harding remains about the entire thing. I try not to personally attack people in documentaries but man was this woman downright stupid, ignorant and every rude comment made about her back in the day certainly seems true today. The event was billed as Kerrigan's Snow White versus the "White Trach" Harding and this aspect of the story is discussed. After listening to Harding it's easy to see she still doesn't get it and it's easy to see that she's still very much jealous of Kerrigan. Listening to her badmouth Kerrigan because she wouldn't talk to her weeks after the attack is without question one of the dumbest things I've heard from anyone in my life. Again, going into this film I really didn't have any feeling towards Harding but afterwards you really can't find one decent thing to say about her. The documentary starts off trying to make us feel sorry about her early childhood but this quickly goes away once we get to the main event. There's nothing good to say about the event and Harding certainly didn't do herself any favors here.
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7/10
She did it
ricardo-morel-oliveira20 March 2019
I watched the documentary before the biopic "Me, Tonya" (2017), starring Margot Robbie (who does not know who she is ?!), she is the villainous girlfriend of the Joker, with ardent fandom, and dangerous Harley Quinn, nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress. I've seen doc before and then know how much Hollywood has grafted onto this movie based on real facts (actually, I have the impression that it's always unrealistic facts ...). Production ESPN, quality ESPN, a valid entertainment to feel a fraction of the rivalry between skaters Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan and realize how desperate to be the best of the best (golden medal!) drives the worst we have in us. Greed. Cheating. Crime. And already notice: she is not innocent, who knew after, well, let's be honest (right, Tonya?!), knew before. She did it ... she did it (and OJ too).

ps: translation brazilian portuguese/english made by Google (blame on it)
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9/10
Probably the Most Jarring Scandal Ever to Rock Olympic Ice Skating
classicalsteve1 September 2021
There's an interesting moment in the film "The Ides of March" in which a presidential campaign intern confesses she made a terrible mistake. One of the supervisors of the campaign, played by Ryan Gosling, says to her, "When you make a mistake, you lose the right to play." This is the reality that Tonya Harding and her "associates" did not understand about competing in sports at the national and international levels, and this is what this documentary is all about: making a very stupid mistake and not comprehending that it could and did jeopardize a professional skating career. In short, you can lose the right or privilege to play. To say they should have known better is like saying the people running Enron could have used better judgement. Duh.

Tonya Harding was the bad girl skater from a lower middle-class family out of Oregon while her skating rival Nancy Kerrigan was the "good girl" from New England, even though the latter's father was a welder. Kerringan was beloved of the judges at skating events while Harding felt there was a double standard because she was from the lower middle class. However, she didn't do herself any favors by being the obnoxious girl who didn't know how to behave herself. She had a reputation for cursing at the judges when she didn't feel her score was fair.

Obnoxiousness aside, Harding was one of the greatest American skaters of her generation, and possibly had a shot at Olympic Gold. She was going to compete against Nancy Kerrigan at the 1994 U. S. Figure Skating Championships. The top award-winners were almost guaranteed to get spots on the US Olympic team in 1994, the strange year when the winter Olympics would be held in two consecutive even years. (In the early 1990's the Olympic committee had decided to hold the summer and winter Olympics two years apart instead of in the same year, so that every two years, rather than every four, Olympics would be held. That meant, the Winter Olympics would occur one time in consecutive even years, in this case 1992 and 1994, and thereafter every four years.)

On January 6, 1994, on the eve of the US Skating Championships, Nancy after a routine practice at a skating rink, was assaulted on her knee/thigh by an assailant wielding a police baton. It was quickly revealed the assailant turned out to have carried out the deed at the behest of associates of Harding, mainly by her then husband and two other "colleagues", I hesitate to call them friends. This documentary is about the attack, its implications, and mainly whether or not Harding, who initially denied knowledge of the planned attack, was involved.

The incident broke news internationally and became one of the biggest sports scandals of the 1990's, along with the O. J. Simpson case. Before authorities had gathered all the evidence, Harding won the 1994 U. S. Figure Skating Championships and also a spot on the US Olympic team. While both Kerrigan and Harding would then represent the US team in Norway for the 1994 Winter Olympics, authorities continued to investigate the case. Would the incident not only jeopardize Harding's Olympic prospects but also jeopardize her victory at the US Championships?

Harding has claimed on numerous occasions the incident wasn't entirely her fault because the people around her wanted "pieces of her". She was raised by an abusive mother and then paired herself with an abusive husband. She claimed she didn't know there were any alternatives to having people in her life who were abusive. It seems that when she became successful it was time for her to find people who were more supportive but that's not what she did. Shouldn't she have known better? That's the question which will always linger. But that aside, if she knew beforehand of the attack, she should have tried to stop it. However, as in "The Ides of March", if you make this kind of a monumental mistake, you lose the right to play. And Harding did. She was stripped of her US Championship medal and was ultimately banned for life from competitive skating.
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7/10
The funny thing is...
rylen4 September 2019
The funny thing is, before i watched this doc, I was 100% sure that Tonya was guilty. Afterwards, well, now i'm not so sure.

Tonya, married to a wifebeater, which he after the divorce was convicted for against other wives. When Tonya was a teenager, she got beat up by her mother. I think she was afraid of her husband., and when she finally confessed to the prosecutor, obviously those sentenced would blame her.

Did the investigation happen fairly? did they have a bias? I think so, and because of that, the narrative was formed as i was and Tonya was convicted in the public.

Imagine the pressure Tonya was under after the attack, the press crews and to train with a crowd, while being scared of her husband, no wonder she crumbled in Lillehammer. Nancy was spared for any attention and could prepare for the Olympics in calm surroundings...she still won the hearts even though she was miffed by only getting silver.

Nancy was the pretty one, well she still is - a lot. But i'm glad i watched this doc with an open heart, because for 25 years i was sure Tonya did it, now I don't think so

Hadn't the attack happened, I think Tonya would have been a great politician, handling the pressure so well while be that young. I still think Nancy would have become the darling, her grace and refined talent made her a more complete skater. But nobody can take Tonya's triumph away from her, the triple axel, she was the first female american to do that.
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3/10
Perhaps they should have done the film from Nancy Kerrigan's point of view instead.
planktonrules3 January 2015
This film is about the infamous relationship between Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan--mostly told from Tonya's point of view. I am not sure why this was done this way--perhaps Kerrigan simply didn't want to rehash this awful story, and I certainly can understand this if this is the case. If it isn't, I cannot see why the filmmaker gave Harding this platform--especially because she admitted in court that, at the least, she hindered the prosecution in the case. Whether she knew about the attack BEFORE it occurred or learned about it later and said nothing isn't conclusive and I am certainly not willing to guess about this. It's simply a case of 'he says/she says'.

The first portion of the film is all about the career of Tonya Harding--including discussing her abusive mother and her being an outsider, of sorts, in the skating world. Much of this consisted of interviews with Harding, her trainers and friends--as well as archival footage. Oddly, Kerrigan's career was only mentioned in a much briefer and more superficial manner but the film described her as more the type of personality the skating world loved. Though, with her working class background, this seemed a bit unfair since she and Harding actually were pretty similar apart from their look and style.

The next portion is about the attack on Kerrigan, the investigation, the stupidity of the conspirators as well as the subsequent competition between Kerrigan and Harding at the Olympics. Again, Harding was interviewed recently about all this for the film and Nancy Kerrigan is only shown in archival footage. As for Tonya Harding, she mostly talked about how she was a victim of the conspirators as well. And, if she was, it did make me wonder why she admitted to having knowledge of the conspiracy and pleading guilty in court.

I guess that this is a tough film for me to watch compared to most "30 for 30" documentaries. This is because I normally have only a cursory knowledge about the topics in these films and little in the way of an opinion before seeing the films. In this case, however, I already had a strong bias as I felt back in 1992 that Nancy Kerrigan was royally screwed. I remember media folks joking about the attack and teasing apart Kerrigan's EVERY action (such as making fun of her crying when she was attacked or her comments at Disney World) even though she was the victim--and I thought it was all rather disgusting. Here, two decades later, it's all churned up again and I couldn't help but wonder how Kerrigan feels about such a documentary as well as the film's focus. It seems that without giving her a platform that the film probably shouldn't have been made--and since the film indicated she didn't want to be interviewed, I wish they hadn't made the documentary. And, for her part, Tonya Harding in these interviews really seemed insultingly clueless. Even if she was ONLY the wife of the guy responsible for this vicious attack, you wouldn't think she'd have the nerve to badmouth Kerrigan today and to demand that Kerrigan accept her as a friend and teammate following the incident like she did in this film!! Among the more egregious commends made by Ms. Harding: "She was the cry-baby who didn't win the gold, you know. I'm sorry, I've never said this before but shut up! You got a silver medal at the Olympics...". Clueless and annoying from start to finish. And because of this attitude and her ugly comments, I really cannot recommend this film.
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3/10
Only the USA exists in the eyes of these filmmakers
rheks28 June 2023
Warning: Spoilers
An engaging documentary was nullified in the last fifteen minutes by the utter disgraceful commentary on the victory of Ukrainien skater Oksana Baiul. With disgust in their voice and demeanor these people talk about this world class athlete, already a World Champion in 1993, as if she came out of nowhere and was gifted the Gold for "political reasons". The truth is Oksana Baiul mesmerized audiences around the world and truly deserved the Olympic title. It just didn't fit the narrative of these self-entitled Americans. Shame on you, for sloppy editing and unsportsmanlike behaviour by the interviewees and filmmakers. Go Oksana!
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Pro-Harding Propaganda
mawriz23 April 2023
I'm aware Kerrigan didn't want to appear in the documentary, but that doesn't excuse the fact that 99% of this film was devoted to Harding's side of the story. Kerrigan had family and friends in this doc but barely had any screen time to air their views.

Majority of this film was spent on Harding's denials and rants. Kerrigan's friends were only allotted the final minutes of this film to state their suspicion about Harding. The interviewer asked Harding softball questions and just let her rattle on without any challenges.

Of course Harding is allowed to defend herself, but an interviewer also needs to challenge her to balance it out.
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