14 figure skaters, including some young athletes, were among the victims of the first major commercial plane crash in the United States since 2009, local officials stated. (More Sports News)
The Skating Club of Boston were left devasted by the crash, as per the club's CEO and executive director Doug Zeghibe, who said that six of the victims from the crash were from the Boston club, including two coaches, two teenage stars and two moms of the athletes.
"Our sport and this club have suffered a horrible loss with this tragedy," Zeghibe was quoted in ABC News. "Skating is a tight-knit community where parents and kids come together six or seven days a week to train and work together. Everyone is like family. We are devastated and completely at a loss for words."
In all, 14 of the victims were coming back from a national development camp for promising young skaters following the U.S. Championships in Wichita, Kansas, Zeghibe said. Clubs in Philadelphia and the Washington area also expressed condolences for members of their community.
Zeghibe said that skaters Jinna Han and Spencer Lane and their mothers were among those killed, along with 1994 pairs world champions Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov of Russia.
The Kremlin also confirmed that Shishkova and Naumov were aboard. Among their students was their 23-year-old son, Maxim, a former U.S. junior champion who has finished fourth at senior nationals the past three years and narrowly missed the podium again on Sunday while his parents watched at INTRUST Bank Arena in Wichita.
Maxim Naumov flew home on Monday. “He had no reason to stay at the national development camp,” Zeghibe said.
“Both of his parents were with him while he was competing. It라이브 바카라 well-known Mom was always too nervous to watch him skate,” the club official said, pausing to contain his emotions. “But his dad was with him, and Dad was in the ‘kiss-and-cry’ sharing his great performance.”
Sixty passengers and four crew members on the American Airlines plane and three soldiers aboard a training flight on the Black Hawk helicopter are presumed dead after the collision in Washington on Wednesday night.
There was no immediate cause identified, but officials said flight conditions were clear as the jet coming from Wichita was making a routine landing when the helicopter flew into its path.
Naumov and Shishkova moved to the U.S. and became coaches, first at the International Skating Center of Connecticut and since 2017 at the Boston club that has trained world-class skaters since 1912. They competed together in pairs events at two Olympics, in 1992 and 1994.
For the Boston club, the accident was an eerie reminder of a 1961 plane crash that killed the entire U.S. delegation en route to the world championships in Prague. The world championships were canceled that year out of respect for the American team.
The European championships are scheduled to take place this week in Tallinn, Estonia. The tournament will go on as scheduled and will start with a moment of silence during the competition for the victims.
“Today, the world of figure skating is heartbroken,” International Skating Union President Jae Youl Kim said. “We share our deepest, most sincere condolences with the families and friends of all those who lost their lives in this terrible crash. To lose so many members of our community in this way brings sadness beyond words.”
(With AP inputs)
