Skating to Some Memories

My mother only cried once in front of me. It was like yesterday. She had just heard a radio report, similar to the statement from the site of the U. S. Figure Skating organization, "On February 15, 1961, Sabena Flight 548, traveling from New York to Brussels, crashed in Berg-Kampenhout, Belgium, claiming the lives of all 72 passengers on board. Included were all 18 members of the 1961 U.S. World Figure Skating Team plus 16 of their friends, family, and coaches en route to the 1961 World Figure Skating Championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia."

We loved to watch figure skating on TV, and even ice skated together on the frozen pond behind my Lexington, MA elementary school. At that time, we would skate after school and on weekends. This was the era of the great Tenley Albright* who lived in the Boston area, and I think that might have fueled her interest in skating and through osmosis, the love of figure skating passed down to me. My goal for many years was to be a figure skater, ha. But, how I loved it. And years, many years later, even out of high school, my then-boyfriend, now husband, and I would go skating every Sunday evening at an indoor rink in Billerica, MA. (This was between 1969-71) And when we were done with our skating, we watched a young skating couple practice after us, during their private ice time, their father was with them and we always watched...how could we not. They went on to win the Olympic Silver in 1984 in the Pairs competition.  Thanks Peter and Kitty Carruthers.  Robert and I went to several figure skating shows in the DC area.

The first Olympic figure skater I saw was Peggy Fleming in an ice show at the Boston Garden in 1971. I went with my sister and her husband, Ralph.

My boyfriend, then husband, Bill, and I went to the annual Figure Skating program at Harvard in the fall of 70 and 71. We saw, Tenley Albright, Janet Lynn (see note), Julie Holmes, John Misha Petkevich, a world champion in 1971 and 1972, and other skaters. I remember getting lots of autographs as well. (Note for Janet Lynn. She was a U.S. Champion five times, a World medalist two times, and the 1972 Olympic bronze medalist.)

Peter and Kitty Carruthers, siblings.

Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean of UK.

Won the Gold medal in the 1984 Olympics.

They skated to Ravel's Bolero. You should watch this.

Scott Hamilton

World Champion from 1981-1984

Olympic Gold in 1984

Russian married pairs, Oleg Protopopov and Ludmila

They won two Olympic gold medals in 1964 and 1968 I saw them in DC in December 1984. Their Swan Lake routine was like watching ballet.

Randy Gardner and Tai Babilonia

World Champions in 1979. I saw them in DC in December 1984.

The last figure skater I saw was Nancy Kerrigan who performed in an Ice Show at the Tsongas Arena in Lowell around 1998. I had a first-row seat with my husband Bill because of my connection to previously working there and I knew the right people. Nancy won the 1984 Olympic silver medal.

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Information about the 1961 skating team members who died is located at Find-A-Grave and Wikipedia.  If you watch the Winter Olympics this week and happen to catch the figure skaters, please think of those who died in the crash.

*  I decided to include information found on the internet about Tenley Albright.  So many accomplishments. How could I not admire her?

"Tenley Albright began skating at eight in Massachusetts, after seeing Gretchen Merrill perform at an ice show. Soon after she committed to rigorous training, encouraged by her coach Maribel Vinson Owen, Albright contracted polio (poliomyelitis) in September 1946. She used her ice skating to regain strength after the attack, and in early 1947, she won her first major competition. By age 13, she had won her first national title, the U.S. Ladies Novice championship.
     Albright was not expected to win a berth on the 1952 Olympic figure skating team, but she did -- and then won the silver medal at Oslo, the highest rank for an American woman skater since 1924. A month after the Olympics she won her first of five consecutive U.S. national championships.
     In 1953, Tenley Albright not only won the "triple crown" (U.S., North American, and World titles) but also entered Radcliffe College as a premed student. In 1956, in the first Olympics televised around the world, she won the gold medal despite a serious injury to her ankle and competition from Carol Heiss. She was the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal in figure skating.
     Albright retired from competition in 1957. She graduated from Radcliffe that year, despite taking time off for her skating practice, and she entered Harvard Medical School, one of only 6 women out of 130 in her class. Albright became a surgeon, joining her father's practice in Boston. She retired from medicine in the 1990s."