Ice skaters date back to the American plane crash

No one at the Boston skating club had any doubt that Jinna Han, 13, and Spencer Lane, 16, would go far in a sport they had fallen in love.

Even in a club that has produced innumerable elite level skaters, where competition is as hard as it seems, the two stood out.

“They had been sought and identified as the future of sport,” the club’s CEO, Doug Zeghibe, told me while standing next to the track where the two athletes trained day after day.

“Then, to see such promising talents, it is difficult. Actually, they were really on the cusp of greatness and really, finally reaching their objectives to represent not only the Boston skating club, but also represent their country.”

That talent, in the complete exhibition in the videos that show them both acting with a force and maturity beyond their ages, that is why they were invited to the high -performance camp that followed the National Figurative Skating Championship of the figuration of the United States in Wichita, Kansas, this week.

After the camp, they boarded a regional American Airlines plane on Wednesday night, planning to fly home with Massachusetts through Washington DC. They were among the 60 passengers killed when the plane had a collision in the air with a helicopter and fell to the Potomac River.

Their mothers, Christine Lane and Jin Han, and the star coaches of the club, Vadim Naumov and Shishkova Evgenia, were also on board, which means that six of the shock victims were connected to the world -renowned skating club.

Skating at such a high level demands a great commitment, and school work is carried out online after ice hours every day.

Inevitably, nearby relations between the coaches and the members of the club equally and, in front of such a disaster, the Club House is a natural place to meet.

Only a few days ago, the members of the Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov club won the title of US couples. Uu. In Wichita before taking a flight before home.

“There were only two suns from those who get energy as soon as you see them,” Efimova told me.

“Every time I entered this ice rink, I saw them in the morning tieding their skates, saying, just saying ‘Hello’, seeing that their faces light up.”

“Spencer was a firecracker, that is the best way to say it,” Mitrofanov added.

“He began to skate quite late than other skaters, but due to his incredible talent, he progressed so fast.”

At the end of a hard day training, they told me that the two would take off their skates and go up to start catching academic work.

Now, at the entrance of the club, the photographs that capture them in motion in the ice are surrounded by taxes and flowers. Jinna has extended arms. Spencer maintains an expression of deep focus on his face.

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

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

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

It was home to 10 of the 18 members of the United States artistic skating team killed in a plane crash on the road to the 1961 World Championship in Prague.

CEO Zegibe immediately thought about that accident while watching the news that took place on Wednesday night.

“My first thought was that this cannot happen again,” he told me. “And I was like, how can a beam hit twice?”

Nancy Kerrigan, one of the many former student of the club, has also been in the club to show her solidarity and cry the loss of the six lives.

Before his silver medal from the 1994 Winter Olympic Games, an assailant hit his knee with a cane after a practice session. It was later revealed that the attacker was hired by the husband of Kerrigan’s rival, Tonya Harding.

“The community was behind me and was grateful for that,” he said.

“And then, now it is my turn to be here. I’m not sure what it is to do. Maybe drinking a cup of coffee or hug. I am here for hugs. I don’t know, it’s just that I want to be able to return what I feel I have” .

In just a few weeks, the club is organizing the World Artistic Skating Championship that will take place in the city in March.

It is a great responsibility to endure.

“Everything requires a lot of us, not only to administer this club, not only in the management of the world championship, but also in pain management,” said Zeghiba when I asked him how they would deal.

The event will be an opportunity to honor lost lives, not just this club. A total of 14 members of the figurative skating community were killed in the accident.

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

“We are going to take it day by day, be there for our members as much as possible and then discover: how do we advance?”