Michelle Thomson’s phone has been buzzing nonstop since Wednesday.
Those calls have been filled with tears, disbelief and grief.
She has seen many things as the competition director of Salt Lake Figure Skating — a non-profit club for figure skaters in Utah — but has never dealt with a tragedy on this scale.
Several members of the figure skating community traveling from Wichita, Kansas, to Washington, D.C., were among the 67 victims who were killed in American Airlines Flight 5342 late Wednesday night. The plane collided with an Army helicopter before crashing into the Potomac River.
Several Utah skaters, including Ogden Olympic hopeful Kai Kovar, 17, and his sister Milada Kovar, 14, attended the U.S. Figure Skating development camp in Wichita last weekend.
“We had four skaters from Utah. They train in Utah at the High Development Camp. We also had a young man that competed in the senior men’s division,” Thomson said.
Those skaters returned home safely, only to learn of the deaths of their friends and fellow athletes.
“U.S. Figure Skating is more than a sport,” Thomson said. “It’s a really tight-knit family. The coaches, the skaters, the parents, some of those people that were on the flight probably had dinner with other friends the night before they left to go home. They were sitting in the stands as parents, all sharing dreams and aspirations.”
That is the reality many members of the figure skating community faced after the crash. They’ll have to mourn and recover from the tragic deaths of those they had trained, skated and competed with.
Some were young athletes. Others were parents and coaches.
Six people connected to the Skating Club of Boston were killed, including 16-year-old Spencer Lane and 13-year-old Jinna Han.
“I think that’s the hard part,” Thomson said. “There were young people on the flight. There were coaches that never will return to a team of skaters that were waiting for their coach to come back and help them achieve their dreams of landing their first Axel or preparing for the next competition. The Utah skating community, overall, feels this loss deeply.”
Coming together and mourning those who died is the next step, Thomson said, to finding healing.
On Monday, the figure skating community around the country, including the Cottonwood Heights Figure Skating Club, planned to hold a memorial and moment of silence.
And skating for those who died will also be how they honor their legacies for years to come.
“The sport is going to move forward,” Thomson said. “Our coaches are going to pick up and go be at the ice skating rink when those kids are training, and we’re going to honor those lost by continuing to train and compete and support each other.
“One of the life lessons that we’re taught in figure skating is that when you fall, you get back up. Doesn’t matter how you get back up, but you get back up. And I think that that is what we’re going to do.”
