Scott Hamilton

For artistic impression, he received four 5.8's and five 5.9's. Brian Orser won the long program and Hamilton was second, but Hamilton won the gold medal because Orser was too far back in the overall standings to catch Hamilton after placing 7th in the compulsory figures, which at the time accounted for 30% of the total score.

Hamilton's victory ended a 24-year gold medal drought for US men in Olympic figure skating.

Scott Scovell Hamilton (born August 28, 1958) is a retired American figure skater and Olympic gold medalist.

Hamilton was born on August 28, 1958, in Toledo, Ohio.

He was adopted at the age of six weeks by Dorothy (née McIntosh), a professor, and Ernest S. Hamilton, a professor of biology, and raised in Bowling Green, Ohio.

He has two siblings, older sister Susan (his parents' biological daughter) and younger brother Steven (who was also adopted).

He attended Kenwood Elementary School.

When Hamilton was two years old, he contracted a mysterious illness that caused him to stop growing.

After numerous tests and several wrong diagnoses (including a diagnosis of cystic fibrosis that gave him just six months to live), the disease began to correct itself.

His family physician sent him to Boston Children's Hospital to see a Dr. Shwachman.

He was told the doctor had no idea what was wrong and to go home and stop the diets in order to live a normal life.

Years later, it was determined that a congenital brain tumor was the root cause of his childhood illness.

At the peak of his amateur career Hamilton weighed 108 lb and was 5 ft tall, but eventually grew to a height of 5 ft.

At age 13, Hamilton began training with Pierre Brunet, a former Olympic champion.

In 1976, however, he was almost forced to quit skating because the cost of training was too high and he enrolled in college.

However, Helen and Frank McLoraine stepped in to provide financial support for Hamilton to continue his training.

Hamilton would later work with the McLoraines in continuing philanthropic support for figure skating.

Hamilton attended Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

The former First Street in Bowling Green was named Scott Hamilton Avenue in his honor.

In 1980, Hamilton finished third in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, earning him a place on the U.S. Olympic team.

At this time, Don Laws was coaching him.

He finished in fifth place at the 1980 Winter Olympics, where he also had the honor of carrying the American flag in the opening ceremony.

He won four consecutive U.S. championships (1981–84), four consecutive World Championships (1981–84), and a gold medal in the 1984 Olympics.

His signature move, the backflip, a feat few other figure skaters could perform at the time, is against U.S. Figure Skating and Olympic competition rules.

Yet, he would include it in his exhibition routines as an amateur to please the crowd.

Later, he also used the backflip in his professional competition routines.

He is widely recognized for his innovative footwork sequences.

In retirement, he has been involved in charitable work and is the author of three books.

His breakthrough performance was in the 1981 U.S. Championships.

He performed flawlessly and the audience began a standing ovation several seconds before the end of the performance.

He never lost an amateur competition again.

In 1981 he won gold in the World Figure Skating Championships.

During the long program, he received scores of 5.8s and 5.9s for technical merit and 5.7s at 5.9s for artistic impression out of a perfect score of 6.0.

He started the long program off with a triple Lutz jump, his most consistent and hardest jump.

He performed a strong program in spite of a minor flub.

He won gold again in 1982 and 1983 at the U.S. and World Championships.

At the 1984 Olympics, he won the compulsory figures and placed second in the short program.

For the long program, he planned five jumps: a triple Lutz, a triple flip, a triple toe loop in combination with a double loop, a triple toe walley and a triple Salchow.

He completed only three of them, missing the triple flip and the triple Salchow.

For technical merit, the nine judges gave him three 5.6's, two 5.7's, three 5.8's and a 5.9.