Skating career

Harding began working her way up the competitive skating ladder in the mid-1980s, placing sixth at the
1986 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, fifth in 1987 and 1988, and third in 1989. She was considered a
strong contender at the 1990 U.S. Figure Skating Championships after having won Skate America 1989,
but she had a poor free skate as a result of suffering from the flu and asthma, and dropped from second
place after the original program to finish seventh overall. While she was a powerful free skater, she
typically had lower placements in the compulsory figures.

Harding's breakthrough year was in 1991, where she landed her first triple axel at the U.S.
Championships,[5] winning the title with the event's first 6.0 ever given to a single female skater for
technical merit. At the 1991 World Championships, she again completed the triple axel (becoming the
first American woman to perform it at an international event) but finished second to Kristi Yamaguchi.

At the Fall 1991 Skate America, Harding recorded three more firsts:

The first woman to complete a triple axel in the short program;

The first woman to successfully execute two triple axels in a single competition;

The first ever to complete a triple axel combination with the double toe loop.

Despite these record-breaking performances, she was never able to successfully perform the triple axel
in a competition after 1991, and her competitive results began to decline as a result. In 1992, she placed
third in the U.S. Championships after twisting her ankle in practice. She finished fourth in the 1992
Winter Olympics, and in the 1992 World Championships, she placed sixth in a weak field. In the 1993
season, she skated poorly in the U.S. Championships and failed to qualify for the World Championship
team.

Harding was a member of the U.S. ice skating team at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer,
Norway.[11] Amid controversy before and during the Games, she finished in eighth place, far behind
Oksana Baiul (gold) and Nancy Kerrigan (silver).

Figure skating record

International

Event[12][13][14] 198586 198687 198788 198889 198990

199091 199192 199293 199394
Winter Olympics 4th 8th

World Championships 2nd 6th

Skate America 2nd 1st 1st 3rd

Skate Canada International 4th

Nations Cup 1st

NHK Trophy 3rd 2nd 4th

U.S. Olympic Festival 2nd

Prize of Moscow News 1st

National

U.S. Championships 6th 5th 5th 3rd 7th 1st 3rd 4th 1st

^ In June 1994, Claire Ferguson and the U.S. Figure Skating Association voted to strip Harding of her
1994 title. However, the competition results were not changed and the title was left vacant rather than
moving all the other competitors up one position.[15][16]