Winter Olympics Series Episode VII - Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan

From the dawn of sport, competitors have bent, stretched and downright circumvented the rules in order to gain an advantage over their opposition. Usually, this is in the form of gamesmanship and rule breaking on the field or drug taking and bribing off it. Rarely in sport are there occasions where one competitor is accused of orchestrating violence against another, but on January 6th 1994 that happened, just as the USA's best figure skaters prepared to go head-to-head with only two spots for the 1994 Winter Olympics available to them.

The victim was Nancy Kerrigan, the reigning US champion and 1992 Olympic Bronze Medallist. The perpetrators were hired by the then husband of Tonya Harding, the 1991 US Champion aiming for redemption having finished fourth in the Albertville Olympics of '92. Harding's involvement has been debated for years, she took a plea deal to accept knowledge after the fact but has denied knowing in advance, but those around her had a different story.

It's as big a scandal as the Winter Olympics has produced, and testament and proof that wherever there is a line to cross in sport, if someone wants it too much then they may just be prepared to cross.

Winter Olympics Series Episode VI - Eddie the Eagle

Michael David Edwards was an unlikely Olympic Ski Jumper, to say the least. Extremely far-sighted, a little on the heavy side and, most devastating of all to his chances in the event, British.

But Eddie, as he was dubbed by school friends, was not a man to take no for an answer. His story is not one of success, no podium, no records (British ones aside) - but he became as famous an Olympian as anyone else in Calgary 1988, and captured, to us, what the Olympics is truly about.

His presence at the games was not universally appreciated. Criticised as an "Olympic tourist" by some, and as a clown by those bastions of fair play East Germany, he lent his name to new sets of rules that prevented him and other hard working enthusiasts like him from having a realistic chance of qualifying again. But nothing anyone said or can do can remove one undeniable fact about Eddie - that he is an Olympian, and a legend of the games at that.

Eddie flies like an Eagle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UAwQ0pe460

Music in the intro is from https://www.FesliyanStudios.com

Winter Olympics Series Episode V - Steven Bradbury

For almost his entire career, it felt like if Steven Bradbury didn't have bad luck, he'd have no luck at all.

Collisions, crashes, missed opportunities and truly horrific injuries, if there was any athlete at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics who had earned a bit of good fortune, it was Bradbury. And after fate had beaten him down time and time again, it took an extraordinary set of circumstances for his luck to balance out in the most astonishing of endings to the 1000m short-track speed skating event.

This is his story, downs upon downs before one huge up, an Australian legend, an unquestionable hero too as more recent event would show. This is, put simply, one of the greatest Olympic stories ever.

Steven Bradbury's Golden Moment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he03dVkhLTM