Jeff Hamilton, an Olympic bronze medal-winning skier and Auburn native, dies at 56
One of the fastest skiers in the world, Jeff Hamilton, who went to Placer High School in nearby Auburn and won an Olympic bronze medal, died this week after a year-long battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 56.
Hamilton succumbed on Tuesday in Truckee, according to a report from the Auburn Journal.
Hamilton was one of the fastest skiers in the world in the 1990s. He won a bronze medal in the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, and in 1995 became the first skier on record to get tracked at 150 mph. He held the world speed-skiing record for two years thereafter and won four world championships.
His race in the Olympics was just his seventh since taking on skiing full-time. Four years later, he took a fall while going roughly 140 mph and recalled the friction with the snow burning through his snowsuit.
“Within a second, the pain was unbearable because it was so hot,” Hamilton told Ski magazine. “My suit was intact, but the transferred heat gave me third-degree burns.”
Hamilton skied competitively in high school with the Hillmen. He competed in his first adult race at Kirkwood near South Lake Tahoe as a 23-year-old on borrowed skis. He placed in the top 20 and decided to take on the sport professionally.
Hamilton is survived by his wife, Carolyn, and two daughters, Eleanore and Frances.
This story was originally published January 12, 2023 at 7:30 AM.
