It was a scene straight from the theater of the absurd, a play in which Nancy Kerrigan had been transformed into Madonna and the Olympic Games into a stop on the Like A Virgin tour.
The news that Kerrigan was to be in the building, in this case the Main Press Center for the 1994 Winter Olympics, had photographers hanging over balconies and mini-cam operators dueling like D’Artagnans for a clear shot of the main door.
Kerrigan was slipped through a side door-no security checks for her-under the protection of six black-uniformed Norwegian police. It was just past noon Saturday, four hours before the Opening Ceremonies of the 17th Winter Olympics.
This was the real ceremonial occasion. Kerrigan’s first press conference of the Games was about to begin.
There never has been anything like this at an Olympics.
This was bigger than the 1988 press conference at Calgary in which a reporter proposed to East German skater Katarina Witt. This was bigger than the press conference in Seoul later that year, when the International Olympic Committee announced it had busted 100-meter champion Ben Johnson for a positive drug test.
The only thing that could top this is if the Bleached Blonde Ambition tour, starring U.S. champion Tonya Harding, plays the MPC. That may happen, because a settlement announced here early Sunday morning has cleared the way for Harding to skate in the Olympics.
Kerrigan, the 1992 Olympic bronze medalist, always has hated press conferences. She has become the most intensely publicized U.S. woman athlete ever despite an indifference to the media that borders on disdain.
So here she was, facing more than 1,000 media representatives from around the world, many of whom were dying to hear what she thought of Harding, whose ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, has pleaded guilty to trying to knock Kerrigan out of competition.
What they got was a press conference that would have done the media manipulators in the old Kremlin proud.
For 20 minutes, Kerrigan was lobbed softball questions by Mike Moran, press chief of the U.S. Olympic Committee, and Kristin Matta, press chief of the U.S. Figure Skating Association. Their masterful work in controlling the situation produced such memorable Kerrigan responses as, “My parents have been there since I was born.”
By the time the conference was thrown open to questions from the media, most reporters were so anesthetized by the stream of banalities that the proceedings ended in 10 more minutes. After only a half-dozen questions, Moran asked if there were any more, and no one took him up on it.
For the second straight day, Kerrigan was asked about Harding’s desire to give her a hug. This time, she had an answer.
“I don’t know how I’m going to feel when I see her,” Kerrigan said. “I don’t know what will happen. (What will) is personal and between the two of us.”
It now seems that meeting will come Wednesday or Thursday in the Olympic Village or the Olympic ice rinks. Kerrigan and Harding are in the same practice group.
On what her future relation with Harding might be, Kerrigan said, “I’m not really comfortable talking about that now.”
Kerrigan said that, like nearly everyone else in the U.S., she has closely followed news reports about the who, what and why of the Jan. 6 assault. Since the desire to avoid the media has forced her to hole up in her house, Kerrigan has watched even more TV news than her curious countrymen.
“It’s kind of like reading a book, and you can’t wait to get to the end and see what happens,” Kerrigan said. “I love mysteries, and that’s what this is all like.”
