We're back! Happy Women's History Month! We think this counts - well, specifically, Taylor thinks this counts. The main characters are women, and the men in this story are SUCH IDIOTS that it's a + for women. It's 1994, and the rivalry between Tonya Harding & Nancy Kerrigan is heating up (I know, I know). Enter Tonya's ex/current husband, Jeff, and his band of boobs (tm). It's the Olympics! It's a crime! Tonya & Nancy are INCREDIBLE athletes! Join us! Are you young enough not to know what happens? Fascinating.
We're back! Happy Women's History Month! We think this counts - well, specifically, Taylor thinks this counts. The main characters are women, and the men in this story are SUCH IDIOTS that it's a + for women.
It's 1994, and the rivalry between Tonya Harding & Nancy Kerrigan is heating up (I know, I know). Enter Tonya's ex/current husband, Jeff, and his band of boobs (tm).
It's the Olympics! It's a crime! Tonya & Nancy are INCREDIBLE athletes!
Join us!
Are you young enough not to know what happens? Fascinating.
Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
Taylor: I woke up late today because of daylight savings day
>> Taylor: In the matter of the people of State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson, case number BA096.
>> Farz: And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do. Taylor, we are live and we're recording. How are you?
>> Taylor: I'm okay. I was sick all week. It's daylight savings day, which is also weird.
>> Farz: Wait, it's daylight savings day?
>> Taylor: Yeah. It happened last night. Did you know that if you don't have any, like, manual clocks, like, check your oven, but, like, you don't. You don't have, like, any clocks. Right. Like, everything else automatic.
>> Farz: I didn't know that happened. And I.
>> Taylor: That might explain a little bit of why you feel weird today.
>> Farz: Oh, my God, I did. I had no idea. I woke up and I was like, man, I really slept in late today. Like, yeah, and. And, and. And that's part of the psychology that was like, oh, my body's just out of it. Like, how did I sleep so much later than normal? And it's just. Wow. Wow.
>> Taylor: We sprang forward. Yeah.
>> Farz: Thank you.
>> Taylor: You're welcome. I should have showed you that earlier, but I. That absolutely makes sense.
>> Farz: I was actually really worried about it, Taylor, because I have a morning coffee meeting, and I was like, if I woke up on my own this late, I'm going to have a hard time tomorrow with this meeting. And so I was like, plan on going to bed super early. And it didn't.
>> Taylor: Oh, my God. I mean, you're going to now. You know, it'll take you. It takes, like, a day to adjust, you know. I didn't adjust. I have one clock. I didn't adjust yet. Everything else did.
>> Farz: All right, well, lessons, Lessons learned. This is why we talk. This why we have to do these. Do these things, because I don't learn otherwise. So thank you.
>> Taylor: You're welcome.
Benjamin Franklin's ghost woke up and is learning how to walk again
How would you know?
>> Farz: How's my God turtle doing?
>> Taylor: My goodness. Benjamin Franklin's ghost woke up. He is doing wonderful. He has not eaten anything yet, but he's learning how to walk again. He's, like, kind of walking kind of shaky because, like, I don't know, if you slept for five months, your legs would be a little shaky. But he's so cute. And I. I gave him a bath in the sink, and I would. I kind of soaked him for a little bit, and whenever I went in and checked on him, his face was up. And he's looking at me like, mom, I missed you.
>> Farz: So he's fully, fully up. Like, he's about.
>> Taylor: I think so. He. He's been walking around. He hasn't eaten but he's been walking around, and then our backyard is a mess because we're doing some construction, and he can't really be back there right now. So I. We bought him a big. Not big, but, like a kiddie pool. So I'm gonna have him in the kiddie pool most today. He'll spend a lot of the day with me in my office, and I'm excited to see him again. I took, like, a thousand videos of him. He's just so cute.
>> Farz: The videos are very cute. The videos are really cute. Yes. We all love bfg.
Doomed to Fail is a podcast about historical disasters and failures
Well, do you want to go and introduce us?
>> Taylor: Yes. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Doomed to Fail. We are a podcast. We bring you historical disasters and failures. I'm Taylor. This is Fars.
>> Farz: Yay. I'm Fars. We're gonna hear a Taylor story.
I read a terrible book about Tanya Harding for Women's History Month
>> Taylor: Anyway, so I do something stupid, because I was like, I don't want to cry. And I had read this book for last time because it is an Olympic story. I read an absolutely terrible book that I'll tell you about. But so I thought for Women's History Month, I'm gonna do an Olympic story that is centered around women who are fine. They're like, great athletes. I will tell you about them, but they're not like Amelia Earhart, you know, I'm not gonna, like, put the picture on my wall, but the crux of the story is the men in the story are so f****** stupid that, like, that makes a Women's History Month story.
>> Farz: It's your favorite way to cover it.
>> Taylor: So stupid. It's. It's very, very fun. So I'm going to tell you about Tanya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. Oh.
>> Farz: Oh, this is going to be good.
>> Taylor: So fun.
>> Farz: This is so good. Have we never covered this? Really? Wow. I'm shocked.
>> Taylor: I know. I know. So the book that I read, like, I don't know, a couple weeks ago is called Fire on Ice, the exclusive inside story of Tanya Harding. It's by the staff at the Oregonian newspaper. So Tanya Harding's from Oregon. I'll say that again later. So the book comes out, and we'll do, like, a timeline. Like, if you don't know what happened, we'll tell you what happened. He'll do a timeline. But the book comes out in February 1994, which is, like, while all this stuff is actively happening, there's, like, FBI investigations, there's. The Olympics have not even happened yet. All these things. So this book is terrible. There are a lot of mistakes. Like, entire paragraphs twice. You know, like, it's just like they. They like zoomed it out based on. Yeah, they really rushed it, which is fair. You know, this is happening in your. In your home state. Like, it's. By the newspaper staff. They probably just compiled a bunch of articles that already written and like, made this book. But the edition that I read of it was from 2017. And they could have at least fixed those things. They didn't like, at least like, added an afterword or like anything else, but they didn't. It still made it as well. I'm open my Diet Coke. It still is just like it was when they did it in 1994. And I'm like, at least get an editor. I don't know. Have your mom read it and have her like, don't publish this. I don't know. It seems. It doesn't seem that hard, but. But that book was terrible. But obviously, like, I've seen. I. Tanya, have you seen that?
>> Farz: I didn't see it because I knew what the general theme of it was. And I kind of. I don't know, I guess in my mind I kind of painted Tanya Harding as the villain, even though I know that she's really not the villain. And her story is actually really sad.
>> Taylor: It is, but I didn't wanna.
>> Farz: I didn't want to watch something that was gonna be like, over the top sympathetic. It's. It's like the. It's like the Eileen Wuornos movie, you know, and you're like, I don't really. We don't need to make this person crazy sympathetic. But, you know, whatever.
>> Taylor: Eileen Warren has exceptionally different things than Dr. Harden.
>> Farz: I know, I know, I know. I have to edit this out.
>> Taylor: The thing that I got out of that movie, which I did watch, I cried during it. I would pray now is the way I felt after it was. Was like, why was this person given this exceptional talent? You know, it just like, doesn't match up with her life. She was just like, given an exceptional talent and had to figure out what to do with it when, like, nothing else in her life would have made her. Made it okay. And I'll tell you all that. But that's what I got from the movie. It was good. I liked it. It was sad. She was. She was sympathetic. You're right.
Figure skating is super expensive. The coaching, you have to hire expensive coaches
So let me tell you about Tanya Harding. Her name is now Tanya Price. She's been married for a while, but Tanya Harding was born on November 12, 1970, in Portland, Oregon. She's part of a very working class family. Her mom's name is Levana. Golden. And her dad's name was Albert Harding. Her dad was like an odd job, mostly unemployed guy working off of like disability, things like that. Her mom also had like odd jobs as well. Her. So things weren't great for the family. Like they, they didn't have like steady incomes. Like that part of like they were working poor. Yeah, like working poor. Exactly. Like very like lower middle class white people. Like not even middle class, low class white people. Yeah. So she did get to start figure skating when she was super young. She was three, which is crazy young to make a three year old put on ice skates. I can't even imagine. But she started doing it and she was really good, like exceptional. Like you could tell right away. So Tanya would practice at the mall by her house, which is fun because I feel like malls, malls used to exist and have things like ice skating
>> Farz: rinks, which is, they used to be fun.
>> Taylor: You could be there like all day.
>> Farz: Yeah. In the 90s it was a fun thing to do. Go spend time at the mall.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah. And this is like, this is like the early 80s, like even like late 70s, early 80s. So she's there all the time and she is learning how to figure skate. So figure skating is like, sports are expensive. Like four kids. Like my kids are in like Florence is in softball. She's been in softball for a bunch of years. So like it's. That's like this is like the cheapest sport we can possibly play. And it's like, you know, $150 for the season plus you have to buy them a bat and a helmet and a b and a glove uniform. And yeah, the, the uniforms included in like the fee to do it. But like you have to buy shoes. Oh s***. I have to buy Florence new cleats. You have to buy cleats because they're growing all the time. You have to, you know, do snacks at least once a season. That's at least like 75. It adds up. And it's, it's expensive and that's like the cheapest as it can go. Figure skating is super expensive. You have to pay for the time on the ice when you are performing. You have to like competing. You have to buy like expensive outfits. You have to practice all the time. So the couple people that I know that figure, that figure skated like, you know, like they could do a twirl, which is like a lot. But they would practice when they were like practicing in like junior high and high school. Like you're there at five in the morning before school. For a couple hours practicing. You know, if you're.
>> Farz: The coaching, you have to hire expensive coaches because also, it's not actually like an economically viable hobby. Because, no, you can't survive unless you charge a lot being a figure skating coach. Because how many people in your town are going to be figure skaters?
>> Taylor: Right? And I do, I do. I don't. I didn't write down, but like, she did have a coach for a lot of her childhood, and then different coach later. But yeah, like, you're paying for that person and like, who that person is trying to live their life too, Right? The money, you know? Yeah, totally.
>> Farz: And travel. Because for figure shooting competitions, I assume that, like, you know, it's probably not like just one city over usually when you're going to for a competition, but you probably have to go states over and stuff.
>> Taylor: Yeah, totally. And there's a bunch of figure skating competitions that, like, I've never seen, you know, like. Like, you know that a lot of these. A lot of people do to save money. One of the things that Tanya, her mom made her costumes, which is they were. They were very nice. Like, it was very hard. I think that's hard. And I can, like, sew relatively. I can do it a little bit, you know, but. So that was super nice that she was able to do that for her, but they didn't. Look, designers, there's always like, a little bit of, like, a rough edge to Tanya's look. That's gonna be part of her. Her, like, legacy as well. Her mom, you know, did, you know, she paid for those lessons. She took her there at five in the morning. She made her costumes. But her mom was not a nice person. She's still alive, but her mom was not nice to her daughter. She was verbally and sometimes physically abusive. That's what, you know, Tanya will say. There are witnesses to, like, both some people say is overreacting. It's up for debate. But Tanya said it happened, and I, you know, want to. I believe her because her background is tough, and it's hard to break those patterns. Like, her mom was abused by her dad. You know, it's like just a cycle.
Tanya was sexually assaulted in her childhood by her half brother
>> Farz: Yeah. Once you know about the men, she gets involved, then you can see the pattern just repeating itself. So it's probably true.
>> Taylor: Yeah, she was definitely. Tanya was definitely sexually assaulted in her childhood by a friend at one point, which is a little bit older. But when she is like a young girl and a young teen, she is assaulted by her half brother, who is her dad's son from another marriage. Eventually he will go to jail a little bit, but, like, it's not good. Like, it's not great. She doesn't have a lot of support, like, emotionally, you know what I mean, around her life. But all this time she's going through these things and she is figure skating and she's really good. Again, my particular movie is, why put this talent in this person? It just is so unfair that she couldn't. That she had her life that was so distracting to this sport that she's actually excellent at. She starts to go to national things, like we were saying. So she starts to travel around. She quits high school, gets her ged, and she's figure skating. So to pause to talk about figure skating as a sport again, it's extremely athletic. Women who do it are expected to be able to do the athletic things, like all the axles and spins and everything, but also look very feminine and beautiful and like, you know, look like you're in the ballet. You know, you're wearing sparkly outfits. You know, Tanya's mom is making hers. But like, you know, watching the Olympics are wearing like, you know, know thousand dollar, thousands of dollar designer things. And you're supposed to be graceful and beautiful, but also like secretly super athletic. So you can very gracefully do these things that look really. That are really f****** hard. You know, it's.
>> Farz: It's one of the most deceptive sports, I think, out there, because you look at what they're doing and all I think about is how many times has that guy or girl crack their skulls open on ice and then have to get up and do that over and
>> Taylor: over again, like how bruised they are, you know, all over the body.
>> Farz: Remember, you remember Elvis, the one guy from the Olympics who would just do these back flips. Just insane.
>> Taylor: Wild. Wild. Yeah, they do so much, so much stuff.
The athletes in the Olympics are amateurs, which means they're not being paid
So another thing that we talked about when we talked about the Olympics in our previous Olympic episodes and just wanted to come back to you that the athletes in the Olympics are amateurs, which means that they're not being paid for that. That's why it was a big deal when, like, NBA players were allowed to play in, like, the Dream Team and all of that, because they're professional.
>> Farz: Basketball still doesn't make sense.
>> Taylor: Yeah, right. So if you are an amateur figure skater, you are. You qualify for being in, like, all of these things, like the US Nationals and the Olympics. You can get money from sponsors, people. There's like a US Figure Skating committee. They will like, donate like, you know, $10,000 to different people at a Time to be able to like, help them pay for things. You can get like, small endorsements and sponsors because you can't be paid to figure skate, like, as a job. The post Olympic goal for some people that people who've done it, like, people names you may have heard like Christy Yamaguchi or. And Scott Hamilton. Those are the people who are now or like, right at their post Olympic career was professional where they would like, tour. So you would like, you know, you can go to a local arena and see them skate, which would be cool. I would definitely hope that the people who did this year did it. I'd love to see them, you know, like that. That's the thing. So there's that.
1992 and 1994 were the first times the Olympics were split into two
And then also this is the time in Olympic history, it is 1992 and 1994 that we're going to be talking about where the Olympics were split into two. So initially there were. There were always Summer and Winter Olympics, but they were always the same year, every four years. So the Summer Olympics would happen and then the Winter Olympics would happen later. some of the. That happened from the very first Winter Olympic game in 1924, all the way through 1992, when the summer Games are in Barcelona and then the Winter Games were in Albertville, which I think is in Canada. So that both happened in, in 1990, in 1992. The problem with that was like, a lot of things, logistically, it's a nightmare. Like you are if you do two huge events in the same. In the same year. There are in different parts of the world because they're in different places. And then the Winter Olympics weren't getting that much coverage because people had just watched the Summer Olympics and they were just like, yeah, the people were a little bit burnt out. And so in they. In the 19, I think it was like 86. In the 80s, the International Olympic Committee decided to make the change. Where now, like it is now, the Olympics are every two years, but it goes summer, winter, summer, winter. So for athletes, it's still every four years, but for us as people who just, like, play the Olympics, it's every two years. There are a couple people that I saw this year who do both, you know, which is like, they're like someone who has. Has a Summer Olympic skill and a Winter Olympic skill, which is cool. But most people, you know, just have like, their one sport. So because of this, there has to be an adjustment. And the adjustment happened in 1992, when there was the Winter Olympic Olympics and then in, in. In Alberville, and then 1994 they had the Winter Olympics again in Lillehammer, Norway. So that is the one time in our Olympic history where there's two years between Olympic Games. So Tanya and Nancy and these names that you're going to. That, you know, Cristiano Gucci accent by all, like, the people who are in these things, they have the opportunity to be in Olympics two years apart, 1992 and 1994. So that's happening. So Tanya is skating in a lot of competitions, and she's doing really well. She's. It's in the 80s and early 90s. I mean, and these are things like. I don't know what these are, but there's like, she's second at Skate America. She's third at the U.S. championships in 1986. In 1989, she wins first place at a competition in Moscow. In 1990 and 1992, she'll be first at Skate America. She's first in the national cup. She's third in the U.S. championships in 1989 and then first in 1991. So the 1991 U.S. championships is her really big one, where she does the Triple Axel in competition. And she's the first woman to ever hit it. It's the one where she does it, and then she's like. And she's, like, so excited, and you're just, like, so happy for her because you know that she did it. It's super cool. So she does that. It was in. That was on February 16, 1991. And it's huge. Huge. I wrote. I wrote I'm gonna cry thinking about it. So she was so that one. She was the first woman to. To compete a Triple Axel Axel in the short program. The first one to ever do two in the same competition. And then I think she did it again. Like, it was just so great. And so that is. I don't know. Let's either US Championships or Skate America. It's one of those. It's the thing. So she's doing great. And while she's in the competitions, her two closest rivals are Christy Yamaguchi and Nancy Carrion, who are both Americans, and they all go to the 1992 Olympics in Albertville. So the way that that works out, Chrissy Yamaguchi gets the goals, Midori Ito from Japan gets silver, and Nancy Kerrigan gets the bronze. Tanya Harding is fourth, which is the worst place to be in the Olympics.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: And so she's, like, bummed. And it's also, like, a subjective sport, you know, like, you're getting, like, points based on, like, what the Judges have. And so, like, Ito and Tanya, they did. They were great power jumpers and they could do, like, a lot, a lot. Really athletic. And then Christian Gucci and it's Kerrigan are more of like a classical presentation. So Tanya's going to get knocked down because, like, her hair isn't perfect, her costumes aren't as expensive. She uses, like, now they use fun music. They used to use just classical music, but I remember her doing, like, the Jurassic park soundtrack and, like, it's classical music, but it's like, you know, relevant to people.
>> Farz: It's not Beethoven. Yeah, yeah. That was like, my whole takeaway too. I actually looked this whole thing up a little while ago, but it was like so much of, like, public opinion. And how she ended up doing had nothing to do with her skills and everything to do with how she looked and, like, how she didn't have the. The, you know, the appearance of like an ice ballerina.
>> Taylor: Yes, exactly, exactly. So that's exactly right. So she's like. I mean, she's just. She's so good. So while this is happening, a lot of stuff is happening in her life. So we know that she quit high school, got her ged. She also has, like, health things that are happening. So it comes with the 90s. We were talking about smoking cigarettes, but she smoked cigarettes, which is like, not great if you're an athlete and she has asthma. So she likes. Has a tar for her to read sometimes, you know, and like, so she has. She's trying to deal with like, that. So she's like, athletic, but she's not like an example of a healthy athlete, which I think is going to be detrimental to her in like, a different way because, like, she could. If she was like a super healthy athlete, she could have done things like Nancy Kerrigan does where she's on a cover of like a Wheaties box, you know, and like, that kind of stuff. And Tanya's not gonna.
So she marries a guy named Jeff Gillooly in 1990
Not gonna get those. Those options. So as also gets married. So she marries a guy named Jeff Gillooly. And Jeff sucks.
>> Farz: This guy is just. He is a cartoon character.
>> Taylor: He's the captain of our band of idiots.
>> Farz: And like, he is a cartoon villain.
>> Taylor: She's a cartoon. Absolute, absolute idiot. He's abusive, he's s*****. She's. But she. I think, I mean, she's too good for him. But she doesn't know because she. How only has bad examples. Yeah. You know, and so she only has bad examples of. Of people who are, like, you know, abusive to each other. And she doesn't know what love means. She doesn't know you can love someone and be nice to them. Like, she doesn't have that. So she. They're also, like, very on and off. So they get married in 1990 and divorced in 1993. But then, like, the big. The big thing is going to happen in 1994. And sometimes she'll say they're married, sometimes she won't, because she's also, like, doing press conferences, and people want to know about her personal life, but it's. It's a mess, you know, so she'll tell, like, one group on a Tuesday, like, oh, I'm divorced. And then on a Friday, she'll be like, we're trying to work it out. And then the next week she'll be like, oh, we're divorced. You know, because they're just a mess and trying to figure it out. I put. It's on. It's. It's. I put. It's mostly bad.
>> Farz: They're also kids. I think she was, like, 25 or something. Right?
>> Taylor: Like, I think she's younger. Yeah, I think she might have been
>> Farz: younger than she was born.
>> Taylor: 1970. Yeah. She's 23. Yeah, you're right. She's also. They're also kids, and they just have. They're just not able.
>> Farz: And they're handling the pressure of what's going on. And they don't have any, like, historical track record of how to handle anything like this.
>> Taylor: Yes.
>> Farz: Again, they come from this, like, background, you know, where. Who's going to coach them on how to deal with the pressures that they're under?
>> Taylor: Right, Right. Yeah. No one. No. So that's weird. Not good and going on in the background.
Tanya's biggest rival is Nancy Kerrigan. So now it's 1994. It's US Figure Skating Championships
So now it's 1994. It's US Figure Skating Championships, and Tanya's biggest rival is Nancy Kerrigan. Well, it's like, December 1993 to the beginning of 1994, because the Olympics are going to be in February 1994. So her biggest rival is Nancy Kerrigan. So talk about Nancy. Nancy Kerrigan was born on October 13, 1969, in Massachusetts. And here's where I had the wrong assumption.
>> Farz: And you thought she was rich.
>> Taylor: I thought she was rich.
>> Farz: She wasn't. Yep.
>> Taylor: You know what? She's rich in love and support. And that made more. And that matters more. That made the difference. So I thought she was rich because she looks rich, because she had, like. She is very New England. She has, like, her. You know, it's the 90s. She has her brown hair and, like, her big scrunchie. She has really pretty costumes. Like, she's very elegant. So you just like think that. I thought. I assumed that she was someone who had like her own private rink, like in, like in the Cutting edge, you know, like, the girl on the Cutting edge is like N*** here again. Okay. You know, other people know. So her mom was a homemaker. Tanya is the youngest of three kids. Her dad also had a lot of odd jobs, so he did stuff like drive the Zamboni, you know, and like, do stuff to like, make a little bit of money, which is not different from Tanya's parents, like, actual situation. But her life didn't have the instability that Tanya's had. Her mom didn't hit her, her brothers didn't hurt her. They loved her and they worked hard for her. So while Levana worked hard for Tanya, she wasn't nice. Nancy had the nice family along with the hard work. And that's. That's what, that's what did it to make to like, give her those couple extra decimals of points to be able to win those things over. Tanya, like, that's why. Yeah. You know, so she had. And she also, like, you know, she knows she probably had some media training. Like, she just had to talk to people like, later. Do you remember when she's on SNL with Chris Farley and there's a. There. It's so funny. They do like a couple skate.
>> Farz: Oh, that's gonna be so good.
>> Taylor: And she's obviously like doing her stuff and he's just like following her around and like trying to twirl and like, it's lovely. It's a very good Chris Fartley bit later, there's like a little bit of controversy. I didn't look it up, but I half remember it where she was on a Disney parade and she was like, this f****** sucks. And like, her. But like, of course she's also a kid. Whatever. But she seems fine. Like, whatever. She's fine. But she's very lucky. Lucky in love and family, which is very important. So she gets that leg up because of the visuals. So Tanya is. So here's the thing that happens. Tanya, they're both preparing for the championships and the Olympics coming up. Tanya is probably at home with Jeff. They've already been divorced. Not divorced or smoking cigarettes. They're drinking. I'm imagining this scene.
>> Farz: It's a horrible smelling trailer. Yes.
>> Taylor: They're in a trailer. Sure. It smells terrible. And so, like, what can we do to up your chances? And she's like, yeah, there must be something, you know, and they started thinking about, like, what they can do to be able to. To give Tanya, like, a leg up in some way. So. But I imagine that they're drunk and smoking, having this conversation, like I just said, like, that's. That's over there. So they decide that they should, in one way or another, Like, I don't know what the words were. Like, she would say, like, oh, she thought they were kidding. Or like, she was like, oh, we were just doing other things or whatever. But they decide to attack Nancy Kerrigan and eliminate her from competition. So Jeff decides to become the mastermind. And the trail from idiot to mastermind is not a real trail. You cannot do that. You cannot be an absolute idiot. And then a mastermind, a criminal mastermind, he's going to remain an idiot because he doesn't know when to stop. So he just, like, thinks that he's getting more and more, like, good at this, and he's not.
>> Farz: You know what the funny, funny part about all this is to me is it also is not a straight line from you win the Olympics in, like, the 90s to you are exorbitantly wealthy and successful anywhere.
>> Taylor: No.
>> Farz: You need, like, managers who had know how to negotiate deals and where to place you and how to place you and, like, like, what did these guys think? They, like, air, brain, steam.
>> Taylor: Totally. And, like, part of the angle is get Tanya the gold and then get those endorsements. But, like, how I know that's.
There's stories out there of her trying to run him over with her car
Yeah, he's not gonna be able to do that because he's stupid. It's just not. Not gonna happen. So again, the story divorce. What happens is happening. She's gonna testify. Like, he. You know, he does. He does hurt her, you know, physically. He also, like, there's, like, all these police reports were, like, people call the police because there's two people on the side of the road, like, pointing guns at each other, and it's like, it's them.
>> Farz: It's insane. There's stories out there of, like, her trying to run him over with her car.
>> Taylor: Yes.
>> Farz: Then he gets in the car and, like, it is just.
>> Taylor: I don't know.
>> Farz: I don't know. It's really bad.
>> Taylor: Yeah, absolutely.
Paul Walter Hauser plays Sean Eckerd in the new movie
So Jeff decides to bring together a band of idiots. So first we have Sean Eckerd. And Sean is played by the absolute gem, Paul Walter Hauser in the movie. I tell you, Paul Walter Hauser is the Canadian Farva and Super Dupers 2, which I told you to watch. And he's also Richard Jewell. You know what I'm talking about?
>> Farz: Yes. Of Course. Of course.
>> Taylor: A delightful character actor. A great fat guy.
>> Farz: I was gonna say. Like, I don't know why the story is so much worse that the guy who does all this is a fat guy and he looks like a doofus, but it just makes it so much stupider.
>> Taylor: He looks like a doofus. But, like. And I told you this. I like a fat guy. Like. Like Pritzker. I like. I think it's. I think it's kind of delightful, you know, but you can also be, like, a total doofus fat guy. And that's what. That's what Sean is.
>> Farz: It's just the idea of, like, him, like, running away from the attack, like, hobbling and barely being.
>> Taylor: He's not the guy who did the attack.
>> Farz: Oh, he's not. Okay, again, the story's wrong. Sorry.
>> Taylor: There's three guys involved. But Sean is the guy who thinks he's the spy, and he thinks he's a spy so much that he says things with 100% conviction. Like, this is true. Like, I spent a lot of time in Russia working for the kgb. You know, I spent, you know, before the Wall fell, a lot of time in East Germany, and I worked for the government and all these things. And it's like, sean, you have not left your mother's house. You'd have not done any of those f****** things. He officially said he was very experienced in security and counterterrorism. He's not.
>> Farz: He's another also lies. That you hear from the mouth of a fat guy.
>> Taylor: Exactly. And he. So he. Like, in the end of I. Tanya, there's. There's, like, a part where they show, like, real video clips of, like, the real people. And there are videos of Sean where he's like, yeah, and I did all these things. And then the interview goes, no, you didn't. And he goes, yes, I did. We checked. You didn't. He's like, But I did. Like, he. Like, just like, we'll give it up.
>> Farz: Absolutely.
>> Taylor: Secret conspiracy where this guy's actually, like, the number one spy in America. Like, that's not happening. But he's like, yeah, you wouldn't have heard of it because I did it. And I must buy. You're like, no, you're not. So Sean, like, they. He knows Jeff knows him from, like, high school or something, whatever. But Sean has a security company, which, again, is like, him in his mom's house. So under the guise of his new security company, he decides to take on this contract to attack Nancy Kerrigan in some way. So he hires two other idiots Derek Smith and Shane Stant. Derek Smith is the guy who does the logistics and drives the getaway car. Sean is his nephew and he does the actual attack on his career. So they talk about it for a few weeks. They get together. There's like, obviously, like, so many things you can track, like phone calls and like, wiring $6,000 to someone. You know, just like, very obvious things that, well, the police will find in four seconds when they're looking at you to see if you did this. They have some ideas like, let's kill her or let's cut her Achilles. And like, okay, well, all those things are. We can't do any of those things. Like, well, you know, what, what should we do? We decided to take out her knee of her dominant leg, which is her right leg, so she cannot land, which makes sense because, like, it's not going to. Like, you can't also, like, if you're wearing figure skates, I think I can even get your Achilles. You know, I'm going to like, what are they going to do? Like, hatchet it. It's. She's wearing, like, a complicated footwear, so they're going to. They're going to bash her in the knee so she can't land on her right leg and won't be able to compete in the US Nationals and in, in the Olympics, which are happening in February. So that's what they decided to do again. Like, Tanya is like, she says stuff like, oh, I just, like, confirmed that Nancy was going to be in certain places or whatever. Like, she goes back and forth on, like, what she's like, confessing to when it gets to it. But technically at the. By this point, they hire Sean to be her bodyguard, even though he's never actually been a bodyguard, even though he says he has a security company because they put a fake threat to Tanya so that it'll be out there that people are trying to hurt figure skaters. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, right? So there's this, like, mastermind criminal out in the loose trying to hurt figure skaters. Everybody should be careful up your security. Hire Sean. He will help you. So they hire him. All part of their ruse. And he, they. Jeff sends $6,500 to Shane, to Derek. Who?
Derek and Shane are planning an attack on Nancy Harding ahead of 1994 Olympics
Derek and Shane. These, like, the uncle nephew. But they're like the same age. They're not like that far apart, you know, who are going to actually do the attack. So first they tried doing Cape Cod where Nancy practices, but when they get there, she's not there because, like, no one checked to see if she's going to be there. She's already on her way to the U.S. championships. And so they end up, like, almost, like, almost running out of money. They do things like they have Tanya call the rink to see when Nancy's going to be practicing because the practices are open, which is cool. So you could be like. Each skater gets, like, two hours to practice on, like, the ice of the. Of the championship. So you can go and watch them, which sounds awesome. You can watch them do the routine a bunch of times. So they. They do that. And then they ended up in Cape Cod. They can't figure it out. They, like, take, like, a bus and like a weird plane to get to Detroit where the. The championships are happening, where they're going to actually do end up doing the attack because they couldn't figure it out in Massachusetts.
>> Farz: And they probably didn't have expense reports, so probably use it. 6,500 bucks. So, like, they're doing this for free. By the time they get to her,
>> Taylor: oh, the money's gone. Yes, 100%. Because they're using it to, like, fly themselves around and like.
>> Farz: Yes.
>> Taylor: And I'm sure they eat at a bunch of ihops. Yep. Have like, steak and eggs every morning. Yes. So Derek and. Derek and Shane are both in Detroit, which is where the, the championships are. And they do this thing. I think it's in the movie, but they're like, so f****** stupid. They have a rental car and they're. They're stick. I think. I can't remember. And I couldn't do it. I didn't spend enough time looking at this. I should have, but whether it's in Cape Cod or in Detroit, but in one of those places, they rent a car and to not look suspicious, they move every hour to a different parking spot. But they don't. But, like, there's obviously cameras. So, like, when the FBI goes there, there's a camera of these two idiots parked and then every hour moving their car so that they don't look suspicious.
>> Farz: Don't want to hire these guys.
>> Taylor: So. So the town now they're in Detroit. It's January 6, 1994. Nancy is practicing. She's done with her practice for like, two hours on the ice. There's a camera crew following her around because everybody's getting interviewed. They're excited about the Olympics, all the things. And Nancy comes on the ice. She is wearing this, like, little white. Little white thing, has her hair up in her scrunchie. And she puts on her, like, skate protector cover things. And the camera kind of pans away because the interview is a little bit over. The camera's gonna come back later once she's, like, on the ground. But as soon as the camera is gone, Shane kind of sneaks up behind her. Because he just walked in. Because you could just walk in. So she just walks in. He's, like, wearing, like, a big coat. He has, like, a telescopic, like, baton.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah.
>> Taylor: But. Yeah, so he can, like, make it bigger. He smacks her in the back of her leg and runs away. It's like, her lower right thigh where he ends up hitting her. And because he's stupid, he planned to go out the back door, but did not check to see if that door was locked. It was locked. So he runs to the back door, which is locked, and they cannot get through it. So he runs to another door, which is also locked, but that door is glass. So he, like, crashes through the glass and, like, rolls out into the parking lot where Derek has the car, and then they run away.
>> Farz: So ridiculous.
>> Taylor: That was stupid. So the camera's still there. The camera comes back, and this is a famous clip you see of Nancy on the ground crying, going, why? Why? Why? Totally fair. She's feels terrible because she's got smashed in the leg. She ended up being bruised in, like, some of her tendons, and she had to miss the championships, but she did make it to the Olympics. So now they're like, oh, there must be. Who. Who was out there attacking. Who would attack Nancy Kerrigan? And the answer is Harding. Like, it just. There's the dumbest guy in the FBI could figure that out, of course, Probably Johnny Harding. So they start to get, like, surveilled, like, pretty much right away. The FBI starts following Jeff and Tanya, and they end up getting arrested. And of course, they all, like, immediately turn on each other. You know, it takes, like, an hour for them to be like, I'll tell you everything. The plan, again, was for her to win gold medals, get more sponsorships, and then, you know, make Shane make Sean's, like, security company a big deal.
Tanya says she thinks Nancy Kerrigan is innocent of lying to prosecutors
All those things that. That does not happen.
>> Farz: I can imagine. During the interrogation, at least somebody one time had to say, this is pretty much the most evidence we've ever had against anybody ever. It's so clear to all of us in the whole world.
>> Taylor: And, like, she's gonna say that she didn't know, but she knew in some way or not. And of course, Sean had also, like, secretly recorded all the conversations as leverage. Of course he did, you know, and of course, there was, like, a huge Money trail. So by January 18, which is like two weeks later, we're between the championships and the Olympics. Tanya is saying, well, I don't think Jeff is innocent. Like, fantasy, not innocent. You know, the Olympics are gonna be on February 25th again in Lillehammer, Norway. Both women go. Nancy Kerrigan, I think she does. She ends up. Oksana Bayul is gold. Nancy Kerrigan is silver. And then Chen Lu gets the bronze. So Nancy Kerrigan, you know, does great. Better than she did the last time she does it. Tanya gets eighth. And it's really sad. Like, so the terrible book I read ended before the Olympics in I. Tanya, if you don't know what happens, you think we're gonna get a redemption. Like, you think she's gonna do really well, and you're like, really, like, nervous and excited. Like, it's very well done. Like they want you to be, you know. But it. That is the one where her shoelace breaks in the middle of her thing and she starts crying and she stops her routine and she puts her shoe up on the thing for the judges and is like, nobody will help me. All my stuff is terrible. It just. Everything's terrible. And. And she's crying and she gets ace. So in the next couple weeks, they're going to all be arrested and all be tried and all get, you know, get. Get time Jeff is going to get. He gets two years in prison and he has to apologize, which Nancy Kerrigan says later, like, okay, his apology was dumb and like, I don't believe him, so who cares? You know, kind of silly, but so he does that. All the b**** are given 18 months. So each of the guys get 18 months for their participation. Tanyak is. Is guilty of a felony, of lying to prosecutors because she was like, oh, I didn't know then, like, I did like all the things. She gets probation and some like a. A couple hundred thousand dollar fines and community service.
>> Farz: The guy who did it got 18 months. Wow, that seems light.
>> Taylor: I know.
>> Farz: You attack somebody with a police baton.
>> Taylor: I know. It does feel like it should be more.
>> Farz: I mean, just breaking the window to exit alone should have been like enough of a felony to get 18 months for
>> Taylor: like, just. I. I hope there's someone who like, has it in their memory of him, like, barreling out the door.
>> Farz: I know, I know. That's. I think that might be why I thought it was a fat guy, because I remember that part and was like, that seems like something you'd waddle into.
>> Taylor: She's also. Tanya's also going to lose her last U.S. championship title as well. So by June, like, she's never. She's not gonna be able to figure skate again. It's pretty much like a. She's like a. Can't do it for all the reasons. She has a couple, like, jobs. Like, she becomes a wrestler, you know, by July 1984. Of course, there's a sex tape of her and Jeff, which is like, no, no, no. No one out there. And like, stills for Meter and Penthouse, like, things like that. She's still so young, you know. And the next. The years after that, I don't know, like, what she did mostly for money, but she is like a, you know, the C list celebrity. She's. She was on shows like the Weakest Link. She was on a show called 15 Minutes of Fame, and one of the other contestants was Kato Kalin. Oh, yeah. You know, in 2002, she became a boxer, and she was pretty good at it because, you know, by the by, she's still a f****** great athlete, you know.
>> Farz: She box Dustin diamond, or am I thinking of something different?
>> Taylor: She may have.
>> Farz: That sounds like a memory that I didn't. Makeup.
>> Taylor: Yeah. In. Oh, this is cool. In 2009, she set a new land speed record for a vintage gas coupe with a speed of 97.177 mph, driving in 1931 Ford Model A.
>> Farz: That seems really dangerous, but.
>> Taylor: Yeah, that's cool. In 2018, she was third on Dancing with the Stars, which seems. Seems cool as well. And now she just. I think she still lives in Oregon and, like, kind of does whatever she does to. To make money. There's also, you know, the. The men have dispersed. I think one of them has since passed. It might be Sean. Yeah, yeah.
>> Farz: Sean's dad.
Taylor: How sad that that talent was wasted on Tanya Harding
>> Taylor: Yeah. And then Nancy, you know, had her a little bit of fame as well. You know, she did her. I'm sure she did some, like, professional skating, you know, too. And again, it was on, like, SNL and did some parades and stuff because obviously, like, made her into more of a hero because she's been attacked.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: But she's also, you know, a good figure skater, but had that. How that leg up with that family that loved her.
>> Farz: I did see, like, relatively recently, I want to say, like, in the past, like, five years, like an interview thing with Tanya Harding and. Yeah, she's a rough, gruff woman. Like, I think. I think in, like, she's just still smoking and, like, shooting rabbits out of her truck and, like, seeming like a sailor, like, you know. Yeah, yeah, that's good way to phrase It. How sad that that talent.
>> Taylor: And not that it was wasted on her because, like, she still did it, but just that, like, that she couldn't tell. I don't think the talent was wasted on her, but I think that the fact, like, she wasn't able to do as much as she could have done with better support.
>> Farz: Yes.
>> Taylor: You know.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: So.
>> Farz: Yeah. But that was a big part of it, too. Was like, again, Nancy Kerrigan, everybody thought she was rich because she looked.
>> Taylor: She really did.
>> Farz: I thought that until put together, like, Nancy Kerrigan with that blue. I think Tanya.
>> Taylor: But. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
>> Farz: Or Tanya.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: And it's just like. It's just like this doesn't look like the. You're not the look we're looking for, which is also the what they told me when I was 6 or 17, applied at Abercrombie and Fitch. They're like, you're not what we're looking for.
>> Taylor: That's the best for the best. You would end up on Epstein Island. It would have been. Yeah. That's it. That's my fun women's history Olympic story.
>> Farz: That is a. That is a fun story. It is tragic for Mo. Well. But I don't know, there's nobody that really feel bad for examination, so, like, I don't know what I'm going with that she's fine.
>> Taylor: You know, like, I felt like you should love for her, but also, like, this made her famous or.
>> Farz: Yeah. Yeah. Worked out for everybody.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Jeff also such a stupid last name.
>> Taylor: So stupid. Oh, my God. Well, did you know that I spent the last six months in Russia as a spy? No, you didn't. Yes, I did. I did. It's top secret. I'm telling you. But also, I can't prove it because. Top secret, but also, I'm telling you. But also, I definitely did.
>> Farz: He just looks like the kind of guy that you just really hope doesn't sit next to you on a plane.
>> Taylor: Exactly.
>> Farz: He's gonna smell bad. He's gonna fart. He's gonna take up half the seat.
>> Taylor: He's gonna talk the whole time about
>> Farz: s***** breath telling me about this. Yeah. It's gonna be just awful all around.
>> Taylor: He looks.
>> Farz: There's some people who just look like they have dingleberries all the time. He's one of them.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Yeah.
>> Farz: Well, thank you for sharing, Taylor. That was very, very fun. Brought back some really fun memories.
>> Taylor: I know. How fun. Yeah. That concludes my Olympic coverage for 2026.
>> Farz: That's fantastic. Do we have anything to sign off on?
If you have any thoughts or ideas, send us an email
>> Taylor: I have one thing I think during our. Oh, you're our one about the Carlos the Jackal, we were laughing about kids learning how to do, like, war crimes in camp. And our friend named Nadine wrote in, because we said kids are building IUDs. We meant IEDs, but she was laughing at the idea of a bunch of kids building IUDs. Like, for women.
>> Farz: I must have died, probably. I would. I would have mistaken that.
>> Taylor: And how funny I just thought that would be. They're building like there's little tiny IUDs. Yeah. But that's it. That was funny. She said that. She was laughing and I was like, I'm glad we bring you joy by messing up.
>> Farz: There's probably so many of those also.
>> Taylor: Oh, I know I probably did it in the past hour. So let us know. Just laugh with us. We're just, we're just having a good time. But yeah, if you have any thoughts or ideas, send us an email. Doom to philpot@gmail.com on Instagram Doom to fill pod all of the socials. We will answer and talk to you and we're excited to hear from you and thank you to everyone who listens.
>> Farz: We appreciate it, appreciate it very much. Please do write to us. We do read those and love those. So thank you and thank you, Taylor, for sharing.
>> Taylor: Welcome.
>> Farz: Sweet. Cut it off there.