Sarajevo 1984 Men SP & FS | Scott Hamilton wins Gold, Brian Orser climbs to Silver

Australian/American coverage (commentators: Dick Button, Jim Lampley, Al Michaels) 1984 Sarajevo Men's Figure Skating Short & Long Programs (starts at 0:27:58), and a couple of exhibition performances. Performances shown here marked below with (*) and (^): Rank Name Nation CF SP* FS^ TFP 1 Scott Hamilton United States 1 2* 2^ 3.4 (plus exhibition) 2 Brian Orser Canada 7 1* 1^ 5.6 (plus exhibition) 3 Jozef Sabovčík Czechoslovakia 4 5 3^ 7.4 (composite edit) 4 Rudi Cerne West Germany 3 6* 4 8.2 5 Brian Boitano United States 8 3* 5^ 11.0 6 Jean-Christophe Simond France 2 4* 9^ 11.8 (partial free only) 7 Alexander Fadeev Soviet Union 5 8 7 13.2 (clips only) -- 9 Norbert Schramm West Germany 9 7* 8 16.2 -- 13 Mark Cockerell United States 18 17 10^ 27.6 (partial free only) -- 19 Cameron Medhurst Australia 19 16* 20 37.8 ----------- [N.Y. Times] HAMILTON WINS GOLD MEDAL IN FIGURE SKATING February 17, 1984 His performance was uncharacteristically subdued, tentative and flawed. The usual animation was missing, and the crowd seldom had opportunities to get involved. No matter. Scott Hamilton of Denver, the overwhelming favorite, won the gold medal in men's figure skating tonight in the XIV Winter Games. In tonight's long program, which consisted of four and a half minutes of free skating, Brian Orser, of Orillia, Ontario, had the best score and Hamilton was second. Orser also was first and Hamilton second in Tuesday's two- minute short program. The difference in the final standing was Monday's compulsory figures, in which Hamilton finished first and Orser seventh. The compulsory figures count for 30 percent of the final score, the short program 20 percent and the long program 50 percent. Hamilton would have had to finish fifth or lower in the long program to lose the gold medal. Orser, who started the day in fifth place, clearly won the silver medal. Jozef Sabovtchik of Czechoslovakia moved up from fourth to take the bronze despite a fall. Of the other Americans in the field of 23, Brian Boitano of Sunnyvale, Calif., placed fifth and Mark Cockerell of Sun Valley, Calif., 13th. --- ''After the short program, I felt I was carrying 20-pound weights around with me on the ice because I felt the pressure. I felt the responsibility to myself and to my skating. It wasn't a performance like I usually do in a competition. It was a win. It's tough. It's really tough.'' The technical problems involved the triple jumps. Hamilton, like most of the others, planned to use the limit of five - 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 succeeded in Only three of the five. The triple flip never happened. Hamilton has always had trouble with it, and this time he said he was too slow and too cautious. ''I scooped it inside, and didn't follow through,'' he said. ''I wanted to make it happen instead of letting it happen.'' --- ''I trained so long and so hard,'' Hamilton said, ''I started losing it at the end.'' Hamilton's marks were not exactly disastrous. For technical merit, the nine judges gave him three 5.6's, two 5.7's, three 5.8's and a 5.9. For artistic impression, he received four 5.8's and five 5.9's. For Orser, who skated before Hamilton, the marks for technical merit were a 5.8 and eight 5.9's. For artistic impression, they were a 5.7, five 5.8's and three 5.9's. Still, Hamilton had done well so long and so consistently that any deviation became glaring. That was why he struggled for words as he left the ice after his performance, alternating two or three words with two or three tears. That was why, as he left the arena two hours later, he seemed relieved that his ordeal was over, though he still could say, ''I was embarrassed.'' But the record book will show that Hamilton won the gold medal, and he seemed most relieved by that. ''I came here for the gold,'' he said, ''and it may not have been pretty, but I did it.'' ---- "For this, my last season as an amateur, I wore a new style of costume— something my coach, Don Laws, and I had conjured up with a Japanese ski-apparel manufacturer. It looked like an altered speed-skating outfit; it was almost a unitard, except for the flared pant legs, and it contained no sequins. The outfit for my long program reflected my feelings about the sport and about the young men and women who devote years of their lives to mastering it. It was the look of an athlete, not an "artist."... My music for this program combined George Duke’s Guardian of the Light, some haunting Asian jazz music by the Japanese band Hiroshima, and Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake... The music played to my power and speed, which is why I always opened with my most consistent and hardest jump—the triple lutz. It had great impact, and I liked getting the jump out of the way." - Scott Hamilton --- #figureskating #フィギュアスケート #eiskunstlauf #фигурноекатание #pattinaggioartistico #patinageartistique thanks to Kim!