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U.S. figure skating icon Dick Button, who won consecutive Olympic gold medals on the ice before he became the voice of the sport on television, died Thursday, U.S. Figure Skating said.
He was 95.
The Associated Press first reported Button’s death, citing his son, Edward, who did not reveal a cause.
U.S. Figure Skating, already reeling from the deaths of more than a dozen up-and-coming competitors in a midair collision over the Potomac River near Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night, later confirmed the news of Button’s death in North Salem, New York.
“U.S. Figure Skating mourns the loss of the legendary Dick Button,” it said in a statement. “The two-time Olympic champion’s pioneering style & award-winning television commentary revolutionized figure skating. His legacy will live on forever. We extend our deepest condolences to his family & loved ones.”
Scott Hamilton, who won gold in 1984, posted of picture of he and Button with the emoji of a broken heart, shortly after word of his death spread.
An 18-year-old Button first came to prominence in 1948, winning Olympic gold in St. Moritz, Switzerland, by being the first skater to land a double axel in competition.
He followed up the groundbreaking effort by sticking the first-ever triple loop and innovating the “Button camel,” now called the flying camel spin, in his gold-medal-winning effort in Oslo, Norway, in 1952.
No man would win back-to-back individual gold medals until Japan’s Yuzuru Hanyu won it all in 2014 and repeated in 2018.
Button graduated from Harvard University in 1952 and got his law degree there in 1955.
When he was done with competition, Button kept skating with the Ice Capades and Holiday on Ice.
But Button’s lasting legacy came, not with skates, but with microphones and cameras.
He commented on figure skating for CBS in 1960 at the Olympics in Squaw Valley, California.
Audiences reveled in Button’s wit and brutal honesty, making him an Olympic staple. For generations of Americans, Button’s voice was synonymous with the sport itself.
He provided figure skating analysis for NBC at the Winter Games in 2006 in Turin, Italy, and 2010 in Vancouver, British Columbia, before he was inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2015.
“No other figure skater embodies the sport as much as Dick Button. He is, and always will be, the godfather of this sport,” NBC Sports figure skating analyst Tara Lipinski, an Olympic gold medalist, said in Button’s Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame profile.
Lipinski’s broadcasting partner, Johnny Weir, said Button’s blunt takes set him apart.
“Dick Button created an open and honest space in figure skating broadcasting where no topic or moment was off-limits,” Weir said. “He told it like it was, even when his opinion wasn’t a popular one.”
Button is survived by his longtime partner and spouse, Dennis Grimaldi, and two children, Edward Button and Emily Button, U.S. Figure Skating said.
