Scott Hamilton opens final tour in Lake Placid

Copyright 2000, Plattsburgh Publishing Co.

LAKE PLACID Nearly three years and, finally, the pain is almost gone for figure skater Scott Hamilton.

That's good news as he readies for his last full touring year with the Stars On Ice show he founded in 1986.

It also marks the end of a string of emotional and physical battles that began with the death of his adoptive father, Ernie, in 1994 and included a fight with testicular cancer and surgery to rebuild a painfully locked and frozen ankle.

"I'm optimistic," says Hamilton, 42, the 1984 Olympic men's champion. "For the first time, I am not dreading the show."

The Target Stars On Ice show is scheduled to preview tonight at the Olympic Center prior to the launch of a 65-city U.S. tour slated to end April 7.

The dread of performing, says Hamilton, came in the form of a severely damaged ankle that was rebuilt in 1998 after a grueling run of shows in that year's tour.

The pain often forced him to alter his program to include double jumps instead of his signature triples =97 a change that made him believe he was not pulling his weight with the rest of the show's skaters.

But just last week, the ankle finally stopped hurting, and Hamilton says he is almost back to the form that made him one of the world's best-known skaters - with razor-sharp turns and incredibly high jumps - before the cancer and before the ankle injury.

"Until the middle of last week, I never thought I'd skate another program without pain on the tour," he says while lacing up skates between workouts at the Olympic Center with coach and choreographer Sarah Kawahara, who arrived from California for a one-day session.

"Now, I feel I have a chance of really doing a tour without agony."

But Kawahara, who has worked with Hamilton for 15 years, says the ankle was only the latest in a series of emotional and physical blows that Hamilton weathered beginning with the death of his father.

"He lost his dad, then the cancer and then the foot," says Kawahara. "It all hit him one after another. ... I always felt it was important to him to come back - that he felt he would be right back."

But he didn't come right back. He couldn't.

"I got sick in 1997," says Hamilton in a matter-of-fact tone seeking neither sympathy nor excuses. "I was skating great. I had two really good numbers, but I had to leave the show for the last 10 dates.

"Since then, I've been fighting to get back. ... Now I know I can be everything I want to be."

Hamilton underwent successful chemotherapy for the cancer and returned to the ice only to severely injure his right ankle - the one that takes the stress of landings on his phenomenal jumps.

"During the Olympics in Nagano (Japan in 1998), it locked up," says Hamilton, who was a television analyst for the games. "There were no gyms where I could work it. ... Right after that, we did 10 shows in 13 days."

Hamilton says the foot would spasm after "five or six jumps" every show.

"It's a painful way of living every day," he says. "Now I know if it does hurt, it won't hurt for a long time."

Kawahara, who has witnessed the full scope of Hamilton's career on a professionally intimate level, says the skater is nearing top form emotionally, mentally and physically.

"We've been through a lot together," she says. "He has really become a very hard worker. In the beginning, if he couldn't do something right away, he wasn't sure it was worth doing. That has changed.

"... He is physically quick and mentally quick, and he has gotten quicker," says Sawahara. "I think this year will be the first he's really gotten his technical strength back."

That new-found strength may be illuminated by foot lights on Broadway rather than arena lights after the tour ends next spring.

"We are still talking about it," says Hamilton. "I will be concentrating on putting on a theater show. When you are skating, you want the Olympics. When you are doing a show, it's Broadway."

And while he will miss the camaraderie of the tour, Hamilton says family considerations are far more important - although he is likely to make a few skating appearances.

"I never want to rule anything out, but I know for sure I won't do a full-season ice tour," he says. "Family is a big consideration. I put everything off for this. ...

"I've been at the party a long time, and this is a good year to finish it. I've had a phenomenal run. It is truly more than I ever even considered dreaming about."

Even with the emotional loss, cancer and pain?

"There is always going to be an issue," he says. "There is always going to be something in life that changes you, things you are going to have to deal with."