Scott Hamilton won four consecutive world titles and then an Olympic gold by 1984. More importantly for him, he has spent the last 49 years trying to make sure cancer doesn’t get to do to others what it did to his mother. The mission became personal twice over: first as a grieving son, then as a patient. Now, the figure skating legend has turned a lifetime of fundraising into something that could outlast his Olympic legacy.

That was after he launched the Scott Hamilton CARES Foundation in 2014. Since then, the Olympian has been at the forefront of the fight against cancer and continues to do so.

“I’ve been raising money for cancer research for 49 years,” Hamilton said in an interview with WTOL11. “Skate to Eliminate Cancer is our peer-to-peer fundraising program. We do them from Boston to Los Angeles and Seattle to Florida.

“We do them all over the place. This is the first time we’ve done a summer skate to eliminate cancer. All of our Skate to Eliminate Cancer events are usually done on ice, and the ribbon is just such a great surface to be able to do one of these.”

The 67-year-old was speaking during the “Skate to Eliminate Cancer Summer 5K” at Metro Parks Toledo. It’s one of the many ways that the Scott Hamilton CARES Foundation raises money for cancer research. The foundation also runs a regular golf tournament and an awards ceremony, among other events, which have proven incredibly successful.

They’ve partnered with dozens of hospitals and medical centers across the USA, providing research grants and care grants, all kicked off by Hamilton. Now in his late sixties, the American is a former Olympic and figure skating great in his own right. Despite suffering from a growth defect as a child, Hamilton found figure skating to be his outlet and began to thrive at it.

By 1980, he was among the top American figure skaters, earning a place on the 1980 Olympic team. Hamilton carried the American flag during the opening ceremony and finished fifth, though it would be his lowest finish in years. The Olympian never lost a world or Olympic competition again, winning four consecutive world titles and then the 1984 Olympic gold.

It made him an infamous name in figure skating, and then came his first cancer diagnosis. While Scott Hamilton survived that, he was hit with another one seven years later and then a third six years after that.

The 67-year-old survived and became an ardent supporter of cancer research, creating his own foundation in 2014. Since then, he’s been at the helm, fuelled partly by his own battle and by the one his mother went through.

“I started when my mom died,” Hamilton revealed. “I was a fundraiser, and then 20 years after I lost her, I became a cancer patient and survivor. That put me more into the role of an activist. We started the Cares platform at the Cleveland Clinic at the Taussig Cancer Center. We decided to go independent as a foundation and go purely into research.

He added, “I’m here 29 years later because of it, but my goal is to replace it with something where we teach our own bodies how to detect and destroy the cancer because that’s how our immune systems work.”

For Hamilton, the mission has never been about statistics or fundraising totals alone. It has always been shaped by a battle he knows all too well firsthand.

Scott Hamilton opens up on his battle with cancer

By the mid-1980s, Scott Hamilton was a superstar. He had an Olympic gold medal to his name, four consecutive World Championship titles, and a slew of other medals. It marked a big period in his life and one that would continue even after he turned professional. However, in 1997, cancer hit him hard when the then 39-year-old was diagnosed with testicular cancer.

He went through treatment and came out the other side, even fathering two children since. Not just that, Scott Hamilton made a return to skating, featuring on television once again. However, seven years later, the cancer was back, this time in the form of a brain tumor. Once again, Hamilton treated it, and in 2010, he had successful brain surgery to remove the tumor.

Unfortunately, the cancer came back a third time six years after that, with another brain tumor, and this time it was an inoperable one. However, with time and without any chemotherapy, the Olympian‘s tumor shrank and hasn’t caused him any problems since. In fact, he’s now living with cancer, albeit with a few changes.

“Life is great,” Hamilton told People in November 2025. “I’m living fully, living healthy, living without restriction.”

“I mean, I’m on medication for the rest of my life — but that’s okay. I always say there are two types of people on the planet: those that will one day be on medication or those that are already on medication.”

However, despite his ordeal and what his mother went through with her breast cancer, Scott Hamilton continues to see the bright side of things. In fact, the Olympian keeps his positive outlook throughout it all.

“Everything I’ve learned, everything I’ve seen, everything I’ve witnessed, everything that I believe to be true says that there’ll be a time, probably in my lifetime — and I’m 67, so it’s not like I’ve got decades and decades left — is that there will be a day where no one dies of cancer,” he added.

For Scott Hamilton, surviving cancer was never the finish line; it became the reason to keep fighting for others. If that future arrives, the legacy he leaves may matter even more than the Olympic gold he once won.