Promising teen figure skater Spencer Lane among victims as Nancy Kerrigan offers support
Lane was on the plane with fellow Skating Club of Boston member Jinna Han, 13, who had also qualified for the development camp and was flying home with her mother. The pair’s coaches, world champions Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, were also on the flight.
Club director Doug Zeghibe said Spencer and Jinna trained almost every day at the club in Norwood, Massachusetts, where flags were lowered to half-mast on Thursday and young skaters trained in silence.
Former Olympic skater Nancy Kerrigan breaks down in tears at The Skating Club of Boston.Credit: AP
“We watched Jinna just grow up here from just a tiny little tyke into this amazingly mature 13-year old,” Zeghibe said. “A great performer, a great competitor, and off the ice, a great kid.”
The club sent 18 skaters to the national championships and is one of the most prestigious training grounds in figure skating, producing Olympic and world champions Dick Button and Tenley Albright, Olympic medallists Nancy Kerrigan and Paul Wylie, and scores of US champions.
Kerrigan arrived at the club on Thursday to support its members and said she was in shock.
“The kids here really work hard, their parents work hard to be here,” Kerrigan said. “I feel for the athletes, the skaters, their families, but anyone that was on that plane – not just the skaters.
The remains of the American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas, which collided midair with a military Black Hawk helicopter.Credit: US Coast Guard/Getty Images
“We’ve been through tragedies before – as Americans, as people – and we are strong. And I guess it’s how we respond to it,” Kerrigan, a two-time Olympic medallist said.
“And so my response is to be with people I care about, I love and need. I needed support, so that’s why I’m here.”
Spencer’s father, Douglas Lane, told WPRI in Rhode Island his son had decided to take up skating in 2022, after watching Nathan Chen win a gold medal for the US at the Olympics.
Three short years later, the 16-year-old had proven to be a prodigy, qualifying for the elite national training camp in Wichita reserved for young athletes that his skating club’s executive director, Doug Zeghibe, described as “the future of the sport”.
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“He just loved it,” Spencer’s father said. “There wasn’t anyone pushing him. He was just somebody who loved it and had natural talent but also just worked every day.”
Shishkova and Naumov won the pairs title at the 1994 world championships in Chiba, Japan. The Russian-born pair also competed twice in the Olympics. Their son, Maxim Naumov, competes for the United States in figure skating and was not on board the flight. He competed in the championships in Wichita last week but had already flown home.
“They were talented and beautiful people,” their former coach Ludmila Velikova said from St Petersburg, where she trained both skaters when they were children. “[Shishkova] trained with me from the age of 11 and [Naumov] from age 14. They were like my own children.”
US Figure Skating issued a statement saying it was “heartbroken to learn that figure skaters, along with their families, friends and coaches, are understood to be among those on board”.
“Figure skating is more than a sport – it’s a close-knit family – and we stand together.”
AP, Reuters
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2025-01-30 19:22:15
