By Gavin Boyle
For a record-tying tenth time, Scott Hamilton will host next year’s Olympic coverage for figure skating.
“This just in, I’m going to be covering the Olympics with NBC in Milano this next February and I could not be any more excited,” Hamilton said in an announcement on Instagram. “It’s my tenth one – ties Dick Button as the most for any figure skating commentator. I’m honored. I’m thrilled. It’s going to be a competition like no other.”
“And the United States looks pretty good. They won three out of the four disciplines at the last world championships, so going into this competition, all eyes are on the United States to see if they can bring home not only the team medal but three individual medals as well,” Hamilton continued. “And I’ll be with Mike Tirico in the studio every night and I could not be more honored and thrilled to be doing yet another Olympics. I never even thought I’d do one.”
Related: How Cancer Supercharged Olympic Gold Medalist Scott Hamilton’s Faith
Hamilton has been a mainstay in the figure skating world for decades, and he has brought his faith with him, sharing it wherever he goes. He was inspired to do so after a figure skater popular at the beginning of his career brought him to faith.
“When I started training away from home, this is where it really got real,” Hamilton previously recalled. “I went to this place in Illinois called The Wagon Wheel, and there was a skater there who was the most popular woman athlete in the world at the time. Her name was Janet Lynn.”
“Her spirit on the ice was so strong and so attractive…and she loved Jesus, and she was very evangelistic in her sort of her skating life, and she would she would try to like bring everybody she could to Jesus,” he said. “… Everybody wanted to be like Janet. So everybody had their Bibles and everybody would go to her church…and since The Wagon Wheel was a lodge, it was a hotel and the basement of this lodge was the dorms where all the skaters lived.”
However, it was not until he was done with him time on the ice that he really got the opportunity to spread the gospel. In 2004, he was diagnosed with brain cancer, and as he sat with the diagnosis, not only did it supercharge his faith, but it gave him the platform to spread his message.
“2004 was the first brain tumor. It just ignited my faith, it was one of those things.” Hamilton told Jennifer Hudson. “I told my wife, [and] without skipping a beat, she just took my hands and started to pray, and it was the most powerful — I’ve had a lot of big moments, that was probably the biggest.”
As he continues to live as a bold Christian, it is encouraging to see just how successful Hamilton has been as he keeps his eyes on the Lord. You can catch him as a commentator when the Winter Olympics kick off in Milano and Cortina, Italy, next year from Feb. 6-22.
Read Next: Why Former Olympian Scott Hamilton Speaks ‘Whatever the Lord Gives Me to Say’
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