Kerrigan and Harding: 15 Years After the Attack

Kerrigan said she's focused on her kids, not her former rival Tonya Harding.

ByABC News via logo
February 23, 2009, 10:57 PM

Feb. 24, 2009 — -- Fifteen years after she was involved in one of the most bizarre scandals in sports history, 39-year-old Nancy Kerrigan said she doesn't focus on the infamous incident that captured the world's attention because she is more concerned about being a good mother and wife.

"I just don't think back on all the negativity, because it's such a waste of time," the former Olympian said on "Good Morning America" today. "My life has moved on."

Kerrigan, who nabbed a bronze figure skating medal in Albertville, France, in 1992 and the silver prize in the 1994 Lillehammer, Norway, Olympic Games, focuses on her 8-month-old daughter, Nicole, and two sons, 12-year-old Matthew and 3-year-old Brian, with husband Jerry Solomon, her former agent.

"I'm so proud of myself. It's amazing now because I have a whole different life now," Kerrigan said.

Monday marked the official anniversary of the showdown between Kerrigan and rival Tonya Harding, whose husband was connected to the baton attack that threatened to derail Kerrigan's Olympic dreams and thrust the usually elegant sport of competitive figure skating into an ugly real-life drama that consumed the media and viewers.

It began six weeks before the 1994 winter Olympics when the then-25-year-old Kerrigan was a favorite to win the United States Figure Skating Championships in Detroit the final pre-Olympic tournament.

But two days before the competition, an assailant appeared backstage brandishing a police baton and clubbed Kerrigan on her right knee.

The vicious attack forced her out of the competition. In her absence, Harding, a fierce competitor who was fighting for one last shot at Olympic glory, won the event. Suspicions grew about Harding's role in the attack.

Within a week, the FBI revealed that Harding's ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, was involved in the attack.

In the weeks leading up to the Olympics, Gillooly and three other men would plead guilty to their roles in Kerrigan's attack. Harding steadfastly denied having full knowledge of the plan before the incident, but did say that after it occurred she was responsible for failing to report things to the authorities.