Other Tonya Web sites & Newsgroups

Websites

• David House's Tonya site is located in Texas. The original Tonya site. Includes a message board, info on Tonya's pro debut in Reno, Nevada, details of Tonya's feature film debut in "Breakaway", and a mirror site of "The Portlandian".

• Long-time Tonya enthusiast Charlie Main from New England now has his site up and running. A regular poster to the Tonya newsgroups for several years, Charlie's site features one of the most extensive collections of Tonya photos on the Internet.

• Friends of Tonya Harding site. This guy's started up a fan club to replace the now defunct one originally set up by Elaine Stamm. Formerly known as the Puppetboy site. Has also created tonyaboxing, a discussion forum that can be accessed through Yahoo! groups. An archive of columns by Joe Haran (of "Skater" fame) also appears here.

• Blades of Gold - the most recent arrival - is run by Kim White & Stacey Howe. Kim was a member of Elaine Stamm's Tonya fan club back in '94 and has met Tonya on several occasions. Has a section where fans can share their Tonya-related experiences, along with samples of some songs that have been written about Tonya that you can download. Doesn't seem to have been updated recently.

• Swan Lake - this one surfaced around the time of the Nagano Olympics. Unfortunately, despite a promising start it doesn't seem to have been updated for some time and mail to the contact address usually bounces.

There are also the following Tonya-oriented Web pages that we've come across. Although not full Tonya sites, they are certainly worth a look:

• "The Lilly and The Hammer" - Not so much a Tonya site, but a page devoted to both skaters, "The Lilly and the Hammer" has been developed by Valerie Smith of Olympia, WA. It's a pleasure to find another site that doesn't treat Tonya as skating's cross between Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot and Charles Manson.

• The land that gave us Sonja Henie is the home of this next Tonya Web page: Eventyrplassen Vannførelag (which roughly translates to "Adventure (or Fairytale) Square Water Supply Team") is a community service group in Oslo, Norway, who have appointed Tonya as patron of their organization. You'd better bone up on your Norwegian if you plan to visit, though - but hey, they're Tonyaphiles, so why complain about trivia? From several hours of analysing it and consulting a Norwegian dictionary, we've determined it appears to include resolutions of a meeting and a Tonya song or poem . Several months ago they added an open letter to Tonya (in English) which tells more about their organization.

• Visiri Rasikan has a small Tonya Harding fan site with a couple of pictures of Tonya that have probably not been seen on the net before.

• Joe Haran, who edited the original Tonya fanzine "The Skater", now has a web site which includes a photo of himself and Tonya. He also at one stage wrote a column for the Puppetboy site (above).

A site operated by Per Persson in Sweden several years ago is now defunct.

A former official site at www.tonyaharding.com is still functioning, but is no longer endorsed by Tonya after an investigation by members of the PortIce Special Duties Section disclosed some rather unpleasant facts about the guy who was running it. We would like to make it clear that this site no longer has any connection to Tonya, nor is it in any way associated with anyone here at PortIce, no matter what the operator may try to make out. A spokesperson for Tonya asked us to post the following disclaimer on her behalf:

"She in no way endorses that site. It is not her site and her name is being used without her permission, as well as her image. The person running it is doing so with full knowledge that she wants nothing to do with it".

We don't believe that the person behind this site has Tonya's true interests at heart. For this reason we also don't link to it anymore.

Needless to say, we would be eager to learn of any other sites (NOTE: we're only interested in real FAN sites or SKATING sites - not the hundreds of porn sites that feature Wedding Night Video stills).

Newsgroups

• alt.fan.tonya-harding.whack.whack.whack - the main newsgroup devoted to Tonya. Although useful material is occasionally posted here, it's now mostly full of spam and endless requests for Wedding Night Video jpegs. Largely a write off like most alt.* groups. The websites listed above offer far better discussion for those seriously interested in Tonya. You can access this group through your local news server (if available), or Google.

  
  

• Better luck might be had with rec.sport.skating.ice.figure, the main Internet skating news group. Discussion here is generally of a very high standard, though don't expect much of it to be sympathetic to Tonya. Access this group through your local news server (if available), or Google.

  
  

• alt.fan.tanya-harding appears to be to do with our Tonya, in spite of the spelling. We suspect it may be the work of the notorious "Chuckie" Newman, who specializes in mis-spelling skater's names. Nothing much is posted here in any case. Access this group through your local news server (if available), or Google.

  
  

• alt.fan.tonya-harding, the only Tonya group that isn't a joke ironically isn't widely carried by news servers because it was never configured properly! You can access it, however, via Google.

  
  

• alt.skate.figure is mainly just a venue for the abovementioned Mr. Newman to spread his falsehoods about various skaters. Local news server (if available), or Google.

  
  

• dejanews.members.rec.puppetboy.tonya-friends was a moderated discussion forum set up by the Skate Puppetboy site (see above), but it was a bit of a flop and not much was posted there. Now seems to have disappeared with Google's takeover of Deja.com

There are other joke groups such as alt.spank.tonya-harding and alt.tonya-harding.scrub.scrub.scrub that existed at one time but these are not widely carried and rarely receive posts - usually spam in any case. For this reason we haven't listed them.

Mailing Lists

There are several mailing lists available concerning to Tonya, mostly via Yahoo! Groups. Registration with Yahoo! is required if you are not already a Yahoo! member and you will also have to subscribe to the groups themselves in order to post or receive list messages by e-mail. You may also in some cases be able to read messages via the Group's web page without subscribing, but this varies from group to group - some have policies that only allow members to access their archives.

• The Blades of Gold site has started up a Yahoo! Groups Tonya mailing list called tonya_harding.

• tonyaharding - note that this one has the words run together, with no underscore. Prospective members must apply to join before posting is allowed.

• The Puppetland site (see above) operates tonyaboxing, which covers Tonya's attempt to switch from the rink to the ring.

• fansoftonyaharding - seems to be dead.

You may also wish to subscribe to "The Portlandian", our own Tonya newsletter and the Internet's leading source of Tonya news. Note that "The Portlandian" list is one-way, i.e. unlike the groups above you can't post messages to other subscribers.

Other skating-related Websites

It is not our intention to reinvent the wheel by providing large amounts of information about figure skating in general; there are heaps of other sites that do that far better than us (we'd rather devote our efforts towards Tonya). Here's some of interest, though:

• Bobek Maniacs - dedicated to Nicole Bobek, the world's second sexiest figure skater.

• Sandra Loosemore's SkateWeb - the mother of all figure skating websites. Heaps of links to just about everything connected with ice skating.

• If SkateWeb is the Yahoo! of figure skating, Skatesearch is the Google - a search engine designed specifically for searching about ice skating related information. Manages to find on-line news articles quite well, and quite useful if you want to search for info about Tonya without wading through hundreds of porn sites (which tends to be what you get when you try that with regular search engines). Unfortunately, development work on this seems to have now ceased, and alot of the info is now several years old.

• Lovena Harwood's Ice Skating page - another major skating site with plenty of links.

• World Skating Federation - backed by some highly respected skaters, officials and fans, this outfit started with a hiss and a roar back in early 2003, setting itself the audacious goal of replacing the ISU as the official Olympic skating body. Unfortunately, it seems to have fizzled out, apparently kneecapped by Speedy's goons, with a statement on the site that it is being wound up. Still, it's worth visiting as it does contain a large amount of documentation relating to corruption in figure skating. One of the WSF's founders, former judge Jon Jackson, has written a book about his experiences entitled "On Edge: Backroom Dealing, Cocktail Scheming, Triple Axels, and How Top Skaters Get Screwed" that also contains a lengthy defense of Tonya.

• SkateFair - an organization of skating fans lobbying for more openness and less corruption in the judging and administration of figure skating. They also run a blog that seems more up to date, commenting on skating politics. However, a recent statement on the site, that "SkateFAIR is currently evaluating our activities and other issues" and that as a result the site may not be updated for some time sounds ominously like "I'm going outside, and may be some time...".

• The Figure Skating Corner - large German-based skating site. Useful if you want a European view on skating-related issues (as opposed to the others, which are all U.S. based).

Olympic corruption

• The Secret Life of Juan Antonio Samaranch - The former Olympic leader's fascist past exposed. Or, "Yes, young Samaranch; I am your father..."

• The Olympic Hall of Shame - your handy guide to IOC skullduggery. "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy...".

• Yahoo's Olympic scandal coverage. Reports from the world's leading newswires on sport's Dark Lords of the Sith. This is the site to watch if you want the latest update on the Olympic scandals.

Other goodies from the Special Duties Section

• Our PortIce Sid & Nancy tribute.

• Happy Birthday Tonya! - Tonya Birthday Cake.

• Notes From The Subtropics - the coolest site in southern Florida; politics, anime, and of course, figure skating.

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