GANGNEUNG, South Korea — For about a quarter of a century, you couldn’t watch Olympic figure skating without seeing Scott Hamilton.
There he was in the broadcast booth, his happy face and giddy voice connected to so many memorable moments. When a skater hit a big jump or won a gold medal, your TV would just about shake because of his excitement.
But not this time. Not with the rise of Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir, a pair of sequined Olympians-turned-pop-culture-idols. They are NBC’s primary figure skating analysts at the Pyeongchang Games. Hamilton has been relegated to a show called “Olympic Ice” on the secondary NBC Sports Network, where he teams up with Tanith Belbin, an Olympic silver medalist in ice dancing, and the sportscaster Liam McHugh.