GREENSBORO, N.C. — U.S. Figure Skating is spending much of this year marking the 50th anniversary of the 1961 plane crash that took the lives of the U.S. figure skating team heading to the world championships in Prague.
All 34 team members who died on Feb. 15, 1961, were inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame on Friday night, with 22 people representing 15 victims attending. Earlier in the day, USFS held a screening of “RISE,” a movie about the crash.
The movie will be shown nationwide one day only, Feb. 17.
The story is told primarily through the eyes of five American skating champions: Peggy Fleming, Scott Hamilton, Dorothy Hamill, Brian Boitano and Michelle Kwan. They talk of the legacy they carried after U.S. Figure Skating collapsed on the day the Sabena airliner mysteriously crashed on its approach in Brussels, Belgium.
Kwan was coached by Frank Carroll, who was coached by Maribel Vinson Owen, whose record nine national titles from 1928-1937 was tied by Kwan from 1996-2005. Vinson died in the crash, along with her daughters, pairs skater Maribel and singles skater Laurence.
Laurence qualified for worlds by winning the U.S. championships at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs.
Silver.
Andrea Poapst and Christopher Knierim of Colorado Springs took second in the junior pairs. . . . After the short program in dance, Shannon Wingle and Timothy McKernan are sixth at 55.07, and Rachel Tibbets and Collin Brubaker, also out of Colorado Springs, are 10th at 41.86.
John Henderson, The Denver Post
