Scott Hamilton
Scott Hamilton
Scott Scovell Hamiltonis a retired American figure skater and Olympic gold medalist. He won four consecutive U.S. championships, four consecutive World Championshipsand a gold medal in the 1984 Olympics. His signature move is a backflip, a feat that few other figure skaters could perform and is against USFSA and Olympic competition rules, but which he would include in his exhibition routines to please the crowd...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionFigure Skater
Date of Birth28 August 1958
CityToledo, OH
CountryUnited States of America
I don't care how many of these things I can inject into my body, am I going to be able to compete with Shaquille O'Neal on the basketball court? No. Or would he be able to compete with me on the skating surface? No. So there's a lot to just basic genetics, body style, physical stature, and then the mental capability, too. There's more to sports than just being big and strong and quick.
Figure skating is an industry now. What's in the best interest of the industry? That's a consideration.
You know, it's funny ... skating has always given me life,
Memories just get richer with time.
I didn't want to be the sissy figure skater, you know.
I was more interested in skating and the girls and traveling than I was in calculus.
Half of figure skating is opinion, convincing judges.
And the fact that I liked to show off and be the center of attention really lends itself to figure skating very well.
And so figure skating was a great vehicle for me to kind of be competitive at something, without having to be big.
But I never really thought that I would be extraordinarily successful at skating, it's just something that happened, you know.
Male figure skating is different than female figure skating; we're not America's sweetheart.
Everybody looked at (Ito) and said invincible. Then slowly during that two-week period of time before they started competing, she started to kind of lose the edge. So a lot can happen between now and then, but if you're handicapping right now I'd say a sweep is a possibility.
It's been difficult. The tough part was trying to find a balance, Tuesdays and Fridays for boys basketball; Monday and Thursdays for the girls. And it's nice for our kids to compete for all-conference and conference championships. Our schedule has been difficult to do, and we made it work as best we could. I think all of that paid off today.
It's hard to ask people who have been through so much for patience. But no one has ever done this before.