(6 of 7)
For U.S. Champion Rosalynn Sumners, 19, finishing second was a disappointment. In pursuit of victory, she and her coach banked everything on cultivating a delicate image of femininity. She covered that bet with a triple jump in her free-skating program, but her style has turned increasingly cloying, and looked weak in comparison with Witt's exuberantly physical approach. Though she skated cleanly and with marvelous style (an Italian judge gave her a 6.0 for artistic impression), her program contained but one triple jump in combination with another jump. That proved crucial, because it was precisely triple combinations that had pushed Witt's technical marks beyond reach. She had been scheduled to perform others but Summers failed to pull them off, and with that she lost the gold. "I let up a little too soon," she said. "I didn't push myself far enough."
Even in triumph, Hamilton had something of a letdown too. He had hoped for a transcendent performance. He likes to call his style "apple pies and Chevrolets," and it is the quintessence of the clear, fast American approach to the sport. Along with Torvill and Dean, he was the overwhelming favorite of the Olympics. He was on top of his sport and all the hoopla that surrounds it through 17 straight competitions, stretching back to September 1980. Graceful under pressure, unfailingly helpful and generous to younger skaters, he is perhaps the most popular champion in modern skating history. He glided through the compulsory figures in first place, but then, in his short and long programs, left fans bewildered by committing the most obvious errors that anyone had seen since he took over as World Champion in 1981. Meanwhile, Canadian Brian Orser was afire, popping off five of the seven possible triple jumps in his long program to win the silver medal. Hamilton went up for two triple jumps, realized in mid-air that they did not feel right and converted them into doubles. Said the barricade kicker, Gary Beacom: "Scotty always skates a clean program. For him to miss two moves is a disaster."
Such are the standards Hamilton has set for himself. Yet there are some things that are beyond even a champion's control, and others have arrived at the big moment tired and sick. If ABC color commentator Peggy Fleming sounded sympathetic in her coverage of Hamilton, the reason is that she has been there too. In 1968, nervous and with a sore throat, she faltered in her long program and burst out crying at the end. Like Scott she won her gold medal in the school figures.
Hamilton had developed a cold and ear infection in Sarajevo. Though he refused to blame his curtailed performance on the illness, close observers noticed its effects. Several practices had been marred by an imperfect sense of balance, and in competition Hamilton, who is a classic skating technician, was off the proper axis in his jumps. The ideal jump is a typical Hamilton jump: straight up, the body spinning perfectly upright, not tilted off that central axis either front to back or side to side. But in Sarajevo, that textbook technique was tilted, and it cost him the triple jumps, the flawless program that would have ratified the accomplishments of the past four years.