Margot Robbie Cast As Infamous Ice Skater Tonya Harding In Biopic

Margot Robbie is to play the vilified US figure skater Tonya Harding in a forthcoming biopic.

The Australian actress, fresh from playing Harley Quinn in ‘Suicide Squad’, will take the lead role in the movie, being penned by 'Kate & Leopold’ writer Steven Rogers and called 'I, Tonya’.

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Harding was a star skater in the 80s and 90s, winning the US Figure Skating Championships and coming second in the World Championships aged 21.

She was also a two-time Olympian, and the favourite for the gold medal at the Winter Olympics in 1994.

But her career ended in ignominy, after it emerged that she was involved in the attack on her fellow team member and rival Nancy Kerrigan.

Harding’s ex-husband Jeff Gillooly and her bodyguard Shawn Eckhardt hired another man, Shane Stant, to break Kerrigan’s leg so that she would be unable to compete at the 1994 games in Lillehammer.

Her leg was bruised rather than broken, and while she pulled out of the 1994 US national skating championships, which Harding then won, she still went on to compete in Lillehammer.

However, it later emerged that Harding had been complicit in the attack, and in March 1994 pleaded guilty to conspiracy to hinder prosecution.

She received three years probation, community service and a $160,000 fine, and was then banned for life from figure skating, as well as being stripped of the her 1994 championship title.

Image credit: People/Rex Features