Winning ’84 Olympic Games changed Scott Hamilton’s life forever ONE FOR THE AGES by KAMA KORVELA While on his way to Paris to prepare for the
1984 Olympic Winter Games, Scott Hamilton sat in the Chicago airport, passing the time by reading at an open gate. His wait was long, so he asked a fellow traveler for the time. “Te person I asked kind of brushed me off, and the first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t get the time of day on my way to represent the USA in the Olympics,’” Hamilton said. Tree weeks later, it was a different story. “When I was on my way home from Sara-
jevo and was connecting through Chicago, I was mobbed by high school students,” he said. “It’s funny how things change.” With his lightning-fast footwork, endearing
smile and crowd-pleasing abilities, Hamilton cap- tured audiences’ attention as no other male skater had before. His victory at the 1984 Olympics was the start of a new era of figure skating in the Unit- ed States — a decade in which the sport would
Scott and Tracie Hamilton
become immensely popular, and skating would be reshaped in favor of a more athletic style. When Sarajevo,
Yugoslavia (now Bos-
nia-Herzegovina), was selected as the host city for the 1984 Olympic Winter Games, it was the first time in history the Winter Games were held in a communist country. Situated between Turkey, Italy, Greece and many Eastern European coun- tries, Sarajevo at the time was a true collection of different cultures. So it was only fitting that a skater from the United States — arguably the world’s biggest melting pot — would capture one of the most exclusive titles in all of sports. After a fifth-place finish at the 1980 Olym-
pic Winter Games in Lake Placid, N.Y., Hamilton was set up perfectly for 1984. Prior to the start of the Games, he was one of the most successful and consistent athletes in the world — a three-time U.S. champion and a three-time World champi- on, with countless other titles to boot.
Being on the verge of a life-defining mo- ment, and feeling the pressure of creating Olym- pic history, Hamilton was conscientious about the image he wanted to portray. “I don’t know why I had this feeling, but when my coach (Don Laws) and I were ramping up for the biggest event in my life, we were aware of the fact that this Olympics is one we will always remember to the point where we made decisions to ensure those memories would be timeless,” he explained. Hamilton’s choices also had an unexpected
impact on men’s figure skating — a shift from the effeminate style that was popular in the 1970s to a more masculine approach. “I may have had ’80s hair, but I wanted pho- tos of that time to stand the test of time,” he said. “We modified a speedskating suit so I could break the artistic image of male figure skating and look more athletic. I look at those photos from that
SKATING 15
PHOTOS BY MANDY JOHNSON
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