Young figure skaters killed in D.C. plane crash were "the next generation"
NORWOOD - Two young figure skaters with promising futures in the sport were killed when an American Airlines plane crashed into a Black Hawk helicopter in Washington, D.C. Wednesday night. Spencer Lane, 16, of Barrington, Rhode Island, and Jinna Han, 13, of Mansfield, Massachusetts, were members of The Skating Club of Boston in Norwood.
"We lost family members today," said fellow skater Misha Mitrofanov.
Spencer's mother Christine, Jinna's mother Jin, and world-renowned skating coaches Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova also died in the crash.
"The Skating Club of Boston is a big family and even though we all have different coaches, for us they feel like second parents," Mitrofanov said.
They were on their way home from the U.S. Figure Skating Championships and national development camp in Wichita, Kansas. Mitrofanov and Alisa Efimova won the pairs national title and returned home on Monday.
Jimmy Ma, who placed 5th at the championships, said Spencer and Jinna were "the next generation of us."
"Championship level skating"
"Absolutely phenomenal," Ma said. "If I was their age, back when I was their age, they would blow me out of the water. Even Jinna. At 13-years-old, I couldn't do anything, and she was already ten times better than me."
Jinna and Spencer attended the high-performance camp after watching the championship.
"These skaters were invited to the development camp because of how amazing they are," Mitrofanov said. "The potential that they showed on the ice and the capabilities that they had at such a young age show that they had promise for the future of this sport."
The skaters described a tight-knit community at the club, where they train together six or seven days a week.
Efimova said the younger skaters improved every day. "It was their progress that made them stand out personally for me," Efimova said.
"At such a young age they showed championship level skating," Mitrofanov said.
Efimova said coaches Naumov and Shishkova, who competed in the Olympics twice, were her role models.
"Their meticulousness in developing young skaters is almost unparalleled," Ma said of the coaches. "You could tell by their son Max, who I consider not just a friend, but a fierce competitor. You know I look at him every day and I'm like, damn I have got to do better. And that was them, it was all them."
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