

She battled stage fright throughout her career, but the night of the free-skate, she dazzled the crowd and judges and won the gold medal. She repeated her second-place finish at the championships in 1975.Īt the 1976 Winter Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria, Hamill did well in the compulsory figures and had two perfect 6.0s among her short-program scores to be in first place heading into the long program. That same year she earned a silver medal at the world championships. Hamill won her first of three consecutive national ladies senior singles titles in 1974.

Later, 1960 Olympic pairs gold medallist Bob Paul became her choreographer. She accepted his offer to train with him in Colorado.

At a meet in Japan in the early 1970s, Hamill caught the eye of Carlo Fassi, who had coached Peggy Fleming. She decided at age 14 to receive private tutoring so she could leave school and devote more time to training. In 1969 Hamill won the national ladies novice singles championship. She later trained with Gustave Lussi, under whom she invented the famous Hamill Camel (a spiral spin to a sit spin). Her first coach was Sonya Dunfield, a former U.S.
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She began skating at the age of 8 and asked her parents to enroll her in lessons when she found herself having trouble learning how to skate backwards. The bubbly athlete with the girl-next-door image and trademark wedge haircut became a media favorite and one of the most recognized athletes in the world.ĭorothy Stuart Hamill was born on July 26, 1956, in Chicago, Illinois. figure skater Dorothy Hamill standing atop the awards podium looking down in happy amazement at the gold medal that had just been put around her neck. A lasting image of the 1976 Winter Olympics is young U.S.
