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The Portlandian, the Internet's premier source of Tonya News

March 28, 1999 Edition - MORE TONYA TOUR DETAILS
(C) 1999 Portland Ice Skating Society
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Stadium/1190
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TONYA ON TV

As March draws to a close, the Tonya media blitz continues. March 
4th saw the airing of the Roseanne interview Tonya taped just 
before her performance on the NBC "Today" show the week earlier. 
There was nothing particularly new in this interview, with it 
largely covering the same territory as "Today", but opinion 
amongst Tonyaphiles is that Tonya came across as much more 
relaxed and articulate than on the "Today" segment.

Tonya reckons her life is straightened out now, and that she is 
with good people. She thanked her fans for all the support & 
e-mails. On the skating front, Tonya believes she is now a better 
and more graceful skater than she was in her eligible days. She 
also says she can still do all the jumps she did in the past. A 
clip was shown of Tonya performing a sit spin and a layback.

Tonya discussed Jeff Gillooly's abuse, and reiterated how he had 
threatened her if she spilled the beans. She explained how she 
wanted to outskate Nancy in '94, fair and square, and the 
considerable training she had put in in the months leading up to 
the Olympics, only to see her opportunity destroyed by the 
stupidity of those around her.

The next week also saw a brief interview on Fox Sports, done live 
from Portland via satellite. We don't know any details about 
this, but presumably nothing new emerged or it would have 
received more attention.

Perhaps the most important interview was screened on ESPN's "Up 
Close" on St. Patrick's Day. There it was revealed that Tonya has 
a skating tour planned for this fall, described as a "second 
chance tour", though details have still to be finalized - Tonya 
is still deciding on the music. Reports are that interviewer Gary 
Miller asked some challenging and invasive questions, but Tonya 
handled it well. Tonya has also recorded an appearance on HBO's 
"Arli$$", which is set to be the season opener in June. It is not 
known whether Tonya will be playing herself or continuing the 
acting career she began with "Breakaway".


NEW "OREGONIAN" ARTICLE ON TONYA

Tonya's interviews have not been confined to television. A new 
article has appeared in "The Oregonian", at:

http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/99/03/sp032508.html

which supplies more information, especially about the upcoming 
tour. Tonya's adviser, Michael Rosenberg, also says that he has 
had offers from several casinos interested in having Tonya skate 
for them. "We have an offer from a top casino in Las Vegas for 
three nights there this fall, an offer for one week at a casino 
in Lake Tahoe this fall, an offer for two nights in Atlantic City 
at a top casino there".

Even more importantly, he states that he has also had an 
invitation to take the upcoming Tonya show to Johannesburg, South 
Africa, and also Tokyo and Hawaii. These are real offers that 
start in October, he says. "We also have an offer for a tour of 
Australia with other star skaters, an offer for her first pro 
competition, which would be this fall, probably in November, 
against top professional women skaters, and have had an inquiry 
about her guest-starring in a major touring show". "I know this 
coming winter season she will be working steadily in shows, 
competitions and television shows" says Rosenberg. Needless to 
say, this totally discredits those who persist in claiming that 
no top-level skaters will share the ice with Tonya.

"Michael says that I have three to five years left as a skater", 
says Tonya. "I always hoped and prayed my dream would come true 
again, and now it is happening. It's my second chance, that's 
what it is, and I feel very fortunate."

Long term, Tonya views her role as teaching. She has commenced 
her job at the Lloyd Center rink in Portland, where she is 
working as an instructor on contract. "Teaching, that is my 
stable life right there," says Tonya. "That is what I plan to 
continue doing with my life". "So far, I have worked with nine 
skaters, and I have five others on the list. It's going really 
well. I love it."

Tonya is working with children, some of whom are as young as two 
and a half. Our sources close to Tonya tell us that the rink 
management and the parents are very happy with her, and that she 
has just taught a young lady how to do her first triple. They 
also tell us that several prominent skaters have been in touch 
with Tonya and have skated with her.

The Oregonian article also revealed revealed that Tonya has 
recorded a TV commercial that will be screened in California 
soon, for something that Tonya will only describe as "an 
automobile product" (we presume it's not The Club).


CHARLIE MAIN SITE NOW BACK UP

Charlie has now moved his site to another web hosting service 
that's less greedy and is back on line. Note that the URL of 
www.charliesweb.com listed below stays the same - there's no need 
to change any bookmarks unless you've entered it as a numbered 
address for some reason. Charlie reports that his site was 
getting up to 10,000 hits/month - another indication that Tonya 
is a heck of a lot more popular than the skating establishment 
would like us to believe.

And it should be noted that he doesn't have any wedding night 
snaps on his site either.


IOC: 0.0 FOR CREDIBILITY

At a meeting in Lausanne recently, the International Olympic 
Committee attempted to show the world that it was taking actions 
to reform itself in the wake of the corruption scandals that have 
dogged it over the past three months. As expected, the IOC has 
taken the quick and superficial route, with a few of the more 
stupid and less powerful Third World members (like Paul Wallwork 
from Samoa) being sacrificed while the real top-level crooks 
(such as Dr. Kim of Korea or Phil Coles from Australia) get slaps 
on the wrist. The fact Samaranch received such an overwhelming 
confidence vote is a disturbing sign that thorough reform is not 
on the agenda, and that the IOC is assuming the public's 
attention span is short and that this token tinkering will 
satisfy the U.S. congressmen who are now beginning to take a deep 
interest in the IOC's tax-free status. Hopefully, they will be 
proven wrong.

Some of those expelled have promised they will not go quietly, so 
with luck they might start hurling mud at some more members. One 
thing is for sure, though: this is not the last that's going to 
be heard of this now that the media have tasted blood. This 
current wave of expulsions relates only to Salt Lake City, and 
investigations are continuing into bribery allegations in respect 
of other bids, such as Athens and Sydney. As we show below, 
there's plenty of other investigative work to be carried 
out.


MOTLEY CREW - THE OLYMPIC HALL OF SHAME

With so many IOC members being accused of corruption it's getting 
difficult for even seasoned observers to keep track of just who's 
accused of doing what. Accordingly, the Special Duties team here 
at PortIce has produced a handy table that enables you to see at 
a glance who's a gold medal sleazebag as opposed to an also-ran. 
It's available at:

http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Stadium/1190/ioc.htm

We plan to update this chart regularly as the almost endless 
stream of revelations continues to haemorrage out about the IOC, 
so we invite you to check back regularly (although unfortunately 
there's STILL no dirt on the Speedskater...).


IOC MUSEUM WOULDN'T TOLLERATE SKATER'S ARTWORK

Or how the IOC's head ripped off one of Canada's most famous 
skaters.

Toller Cranston is not only a 1976 Olympic Bronze medalist, he's 
also a bit of an artist. So it seemed pretty logical when Carol 
Anne Letheren, one of Canada's two IOC members (and a good friend 
of Cranston) suggested to him that an exhibition of his work be 
mounted in the Olympic Museum in Lausanne during the World Figure 
Skating Championships that were held in that city in March of 
1997.

What should have been an opportunity of a lifetime, however, 
instead turned into a nightmare for the great skater. For a 
start, the staff in the museum, which is one of Samaranch's pet 
projects, were less than helpful, behaving in a manner Cranston 
described as "positively negative". Three days before the show 
the museum curator stopped the shipment of the paintings, 
claiming there was no room, even though there was obviously 
plenty of space. Cranston says he nearly had a nervous breakdown 
as a result of these logistical hassles.

Nor did the IOC's shenanigans stop there. Whilst in Lausanne, 
Toller was also given an eleven-minute audience with Samaranch 
himself, arranged by Canada's other Olympic Committee member, IOC 
vice-president Dick Pound. You would think that the leader of 
world sport would have plenty to discuss with an Olympic 
medalist, but Sammy wasn't interested in discussing the merits of 
either Toller's skating or his artwork - he just wanted to get 
his greedy claws on one of the paintings. The gift was part of 
Olympic "etiquette", Cranston learned.

"Without batting an eyelid", according to Cranston, Samaranch 
took about 10 seconds to pick the biggest and most expensive 
piece - a painting valued at 15,000 to 16,000 Canadian dollars. 
Supposedly to go to the Museum, he was told.

"The Portlandian" wonders where the painting has finally ended 
up. Has it really gone into the Museum, which is apparently too 
"crowded" for an exhibition of artworks by a former Olympian, but 
which seems to have plenty of space for things like the assorted 
shotguns that were given to Samaranch by the Salt Lake City bid 
committee? Or maybe it disappeared into the same black hole as 
those samurai swords that the Governor of Nagano gave to 
Samaranch several years ago which he seems to have a bad case of 
amnesia about and which the IOC has no records of? Either way, we 
think it shows alot about what the IOC's attitude towards 
sportspeople really is - that they're cash cows.

By the way, if you want to find out more about Toller's 
paintings, you can visit his Web site at:

http://www.tollercranston.com

As for Letheren, she has her own problems: she's currently being 
accused of conflicts of interest in her dealings with the Toronto 
bid committee. Appears the committee awarded some contracts to 
some consulting firms she's a member of. Oh dear.

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VISIT THESE GREAT TONYA WEB SITES:

PortIce - http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Stadium/1190
Roy Edwards (formerly Jim Maxey) - http://www.tonyaharding.com
Dave House - http://www.davidhouse.com/tonya/index.html
Charlie Main - http://www.charliesweb.com/tonya/tonya.html
Puppetboy - http://www.puppetland.com/mirrortony2.html
Valerie Smith - http://www.olywa.net/radu/valerie/LilHam.html
Swan Lake - http://members.tripod.com/~TonyaHarding/index.html
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