Ice skaters reel from US plane crash

No one at the Skating Club of Boston had any doubt that 13-year-old Jinna Han and 16-year-old Spencer Lane would go far in a sport they had fallen in love with.

Even at a club that has produced countless elite-level skaters – where the competition is as tough as it gets – the two stood out.

“They had been sought out and identified as the future of the sport,” the club’s CEO Doug Zeghibe told me while standing alongside the rink where the two athletes trained day in and day out.

“So, to see such promising talents snuffed out, it’s hard. They really, truly were on the cusp of greatness and really, finally hitting their goals of representing not just the Skating Club of Boston but representing their country.”

That talent, on full display in videos that show them both performing with a strength and maturity beyond their ages, was why they were invited to the High Performance Camp that followed the US National Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas, this week.

After the camp, they boarded an American Airlines regional jet on Wednesday evening, planning to fly home to Massachusetts via Washington DC. They were among the 60 passengers killed when the jet had a mid-air collision with a helicopter and fell into the Potomac River.

Their mothers, Christine Lane and Jin Han, and the club’s star coaches Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, were also on board, meaning that six of the crash victims were all connected to the world-renowned skating club.

Skating at such a high level demands a huge commitment, with schoolwork being carried out online after hours on the ice each day.

Inevitably, close relationships develop among coaches and club members alike and, in the face of such a disaster, the clubhouse is a natural place to gather.

Just a few days ago, club members Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov won the US pairs title in Wichita before taking an earlier flight home.

“They were just two sunshines that you get the energy from as soon as you see them,” Efimova told me.

“Every time I would walk into this ice rink, I would see them in the morning tying their skates, saying, just saying ‘hello,’ seeing their faces lit up.”

“Spencer was a firecracker, that’s the best way to put it,” Mitrofanov added.

“He started skating fairly later than other skaters, but because of his amazing talent, he progressed so quickly.”

At the end of a hard day’s training, they told me, the two would take their skates off and head upstairs to begin catching up on academic work.

Now, in the club’s entrance, photographs capturing them in motion on the ice are surrounded by tributes and flowers. Jinna has her arms outstretched. Spencer maintains a look of deep focus on his face.

“You don’t expect it,” Mitrofanov said. “And when it happens, it breaks you.”

Coaches Naumov and Shishkova, originally from Russia, were the 1994 world pairs skating champions. They leave a 23-year-old son, Maxim, another promising talent from Boston who finished fourth in the men’s competition in Wichita.

In its more than 100 years of history, the club has seen before how success can be quickly overshadowed by tragedy.

It was home to 10 of the 18 members of the US figure skating team killed in a plane crash on the way to the 1961 world championships in Prague.

CEO Zeghibe immediately thought of that crash as he watched the unfolding news on Wednesday night.

“My first thought was this can’t be happening again,” he told me. “And I was just like, how can lightning strike twice?”

One of the club’s many well-known alumnus, Nancy Kerrigan has also been at the club to show her solidarity and mourn the loss of the six lives.

Before her 1994 Winter Olympics silver medal, an assailant struck her knee with a baton after a practice session. It was later revealed the attacker was hired by the husband of Kerrigan’s rival, Tonya Harding.

“The community stood behind me and I was grateful for that,” she said.

“And so, it’s my turn now to hopefully be here. I’m not sure what it is to do. Maybe get a cup of coffee or hug. I’m here for hugs. I don’t know, it’s just I want to be able to give back what I feel like I got.”

In just a few weeks, the club is organising the World Figure Skating Championships taking place in the city in March.

It’s a huge responsibility to bear.

“It all requires a lot from us, not just in running this club, not just in running the World Championships, but now also in managing grief,” Zeghibe said when I asked him how they would cope.

The event will be a chance to honour the lives lost, not only from this club. A total of 14 members of the figure skating community were killed in the crash.

“I think looking to the future is part of the emotional healing process,” he said, “and it’s good to have things to focus on that are positive for the sport.”

“We’re going to take it day by day, be there for our members as much as possible, and then figure out: How do we move forward?”