DC Games 2014: Rising from the Ashes

By DC Cueva

@DC408dxtr

Figure skating has always been a top draw for Olympic viewers for so many years here in the United States, with its marquee event, the ladies' long program, typically receiving the highest ratings of any Winter Games. With the sport once again taking precedent on our screens, both in primetime, and this year receiving an advanced showing for the first time live in daytime from an overseas Games on NBCSN and on Live Extra - and has been attracting record audiences to both platforms, casual viewers, as well as the sport's loyal fans, are once again being glued to a sport with the elegance and artistry that's only matched by its summer counterpart of gymnastics and found no where else outside of the Olympic arena.

Twenty years ago was when the sport reached all-time peaks in interest and delivered the two most-watched single nights in Olympic history to the ladies' figure skating competition. And what caused it was the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan affair, one that brought a Hollywood soap opera into this sport when assailants of Harding clubbed Kerrigan at warm-ups of that year's U.S. Figure Skating Championships, which was also the Olympic selection event. It drew even the most casual of people to this sport, and the media circus that surrounded the Tonya/Nancy scandal was unparalleled, peaking at when both made their way to Lillehammer. In the end, Kerrigan took a silver medal behind Ukraine's Oksuna Bieul, while Harding finished outside of the medals.

   But this wasn't the first time figure skating made headlines in the United States for reasons other than for the skating on the ice. In 2002, everyone remembers "Skate Gate" - the controversy surrounding the judging scandal following the pairs free skate, the subsequent rewarding of dual gold medals to the Russian & Canadian teams and the eventual retransformation of the sport's judging system. And the case of the story we are about to tell on here, this third one represented the single lowest point in the history of the U.S. figure skating program.

Starting with Dick Button winning back-to-back Olympic gold in the men's event in 1948 and 1952, the U.S. enjoyed a period of dominance of figure skating. The Jenkins brothers, Davis and Hayes Allen, would combine to win 7 world titles between them, and led a sweep of the men's Olympic podium in 1956. On the women's side, Carol Heiss would win 5 straight world titles, and in 1960 in Squaw Valley, she would become one of only 7 Americans to earn the title of ladies Olympic gold medalist.

Then on February 15, 1961 at the beginning of the road to Innsbruck, the United States sent a strong team to that year's World Championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Just off of competing at that year's U.S. Figure Skating Championships, the team boarded a plane from what is now JFK International Airport in New York en route to behind the iron curtain. But with no warning signs, the plane suddenly encountered sudden engine failure on its final descent to Brussels, Belgium on a layover to Prague. The plane would then nosedive into a farm field and burst into flames less than two miles from the airport, just after 10:00 a.m. local time in Brussels. It was the first fatal accident involving a Boeing 707, just short of two-and-a-half months after it begun being used commercially in regular passenger service.

   All 72 people on board were killed (with one additional person, a farmer, being killed on the ground by debris upon the plane's impact), and that included all 34 members of the United States figure skating contingent: 18 skaters and 16 family members, coaches & officials. Among the list of those who perished included 9-time U.S. champion (and later coach) Maribel Vinson-Owen, reigning U.S. ladies' champion Laurie Owen, pairs champion Maribel Owen & Dudley Richards, men's champion Bradley Lord, and dance champions Diane Sherbloom & Larry Pierce. Also on board were men's silver medalist Gregory Kelley, ladies' silver medalist Stephanie Westerfield and ladies' bronze medalist Rhode Lee Michelson, along with Vinson-Owen's two daughters.

The loss of the entire U.S. team was considered so catastrophic for the international figure skating community that, that a mark of respect for their fallen comrades, the 1961 World Figure Skating Championships in Prague were cancelled as a result. And President Kennedy issued a statement of condolence from the White House, expressing sorrow for everyone involved, but none more so for one of the skaters killed in the crash as Richards was a personal friend of the Kennedys, and had spent summers with the President, Ted Kennedy and their family in Massachusetts.

   In the aftermath of this devastating accident, the crash would be a huge blow to U.S. figure skating after being a strong force in the sport in the '50s, as many top coaches as well as athletes were among the casualties and leading eventually to foreign coaches being transported to America. While Scott Allen won bronze in Innsbruck in 1964, it would only be four years later in Grenoble where the U.S. would regain prominence in figure skating when Peggy Fleming won the country's only gold of the Games in the ladies' event, while Tim Wood picked up silver in the men's.

Instead of simply mourning the loss of a whole generation of skaters, shortly after the crash the United States Figure Skating Association and president F. Ritter Shumway, who had been in office barely two months the time of that crash, helped establish the USFSA Memorial Fund in honor of the victims. More than 50 years later, the fund is still in existence, and has been used to help support the training of promising young figure skaters across the country. 

   Starting with Innsbruck and continuing all the way to this year in Sochi, every generation of U.S. figure skaters have benefited from the Memorial Fund, spanning from Fleming and Dorothy Hamill, to Scott Hamilton and Michelle Kwan, and right up to Evan Lysachek and the dance duo of Meryl Davis & Charlie White. In all, the U.S. has won 28 Olympic medals (including bronze in the inaugural Team event back on Sunday) and countless World titles & medals in the 53 years since the accident.

   And in 2011 - the 50th anniversary of the accident, a film about the event, RISE, was commissioned by U.S. Figure Skating to tell that story to a new generation of figure skating fans and celebrate the history of American figure skating since the tragedy, eventually being shown in theaters twice that and later airing on NBCSN.

So, while figure skating fans and all of us watch figure skating at these Olympics, including tonight's pairs free skate, it's easy to remember some of the things that we remember: the gold medal performances, the moves of the skaters, the emotion and the stories. But thanks to this article, it's also worth remembering where the sport in this country has come from, including the long road back the United States figure skating program has been through from the lowest point in its history to the highest of highs. Simply take time to remember where you came from.

Keep it here on DCBLOG for more Games 2014 posts during Sochi 2014 as we cover various aspects of the Olympics, the sports and events from Olympic world, taking the SocialPulse of key moments and so much more as the action unfolds from Russia. And Twitter @DC408dxtr will offer live tweeting (Pacific time) of television coverage including tonight's primetime show and live streaming & cable coverage, time permitting.

   We are also covering MTV's Real World Ex-Plosion and Are You The One? here including a SocialPulse of last night's episode to be posted here later tonight, and a Fan's View of the RW After Shows. If you love those shows, follow me for live tweeting and show alerts. For now, until I join you on twitter at 8pm PT and then here on the blog tomorrow, thanks for reading and see you then.

- DC