Tonya Harding - 1989 Skate America Long Program

[officeaddict33]

Nancy competed at this same competition and did quite poorly popping triples into doubles and falling and looking hesitant. Tonya was a level above Nancy - hard to believe Tonya ever felt threatened by Nancy.

[officeaddict33]

Like others said, she had amazing concentration in this program. Such solid jumps and fast spins, EASY 2 Axels!!

[trav16z]

she tried the 3axel at the 1990 olympic festival

[Dylvente]

She probably could have performed the triple axel had she scheduled it earlier in the program.

[bardtoob]

I am amazed at the level of concentration she demonstrates during this program. In her other programs her focus seems to be all over the place even when she performed well.

[yodabeesh]

Wow! Amazing!!! Thanks for posting this... great to see this performance cleanly! It was so disheartening to see the same program at 1990 Nationals when she was sick :(

[plane1707]

If I remember correctly, Jill landed "a" triple jump in her LP at this competition. But even a clean program from Trenary might not have been enough to overtake Harding here.

Just think of what could have been had Tonya not fallen ill at this season's nationals and placed seventh. 1990 could have been her year.

[disneyguy29]

You do remember correctly! Jill's performance here was completely disastrous. To the same program she won the Us and World titles to just months later, Jill bombed!

She put both hands down on opening 3toe, turned out of 3flip, landed the 1ftaxel-3sal combo (ironically the only thing she lnded here was the only thing she missed at Worlds). Then a very bad hand down on 2axel and disastrous fall on 3toe. Ended with a turn-out 3sal. Dreadful.

[dsfddsgh]

Was this guy confused or something? Tonya wasn't doing the triple axel back then was she? I don't think she even tried it until the 1991 Nationals. I could be wrong though.

[rfillangi]

She had the triple axel back in 1989. She landed it in practice a lot but the first times she went for it in a compitition was the 1991 Nationals.

[jeffy5869]

Tonya was doing the triple axel at this competition. I was at the event, and she did several triple axels in practice and in the warm-up prior to the freeskate.