Hemingway Would’ve Wept for US Skaters
The hopeful US figure skaters, let alone their coaches, were way too young to learn Hemingway’s admonition in “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” that is, “The Bell Tolls for Thee,” as it will for all of us.
The heart-breaking WSJ article suggested the universal grief felt plainly enough by its very titling, “Plane Crash Rips Through World of Elite Figure Skating.” The 60 passengers on American Airlines Flight 5342 trying to land about 9 pm at DC’s Reagan National Airport “included some of America’s most promising young skaters and coaches, returning from a national training camp [in Wichita, Kansas] for up-and-coming talents.” It’s an understatement to say that the event was supposed to have been a career highlight for these teens dreaming about being Olympians one day. Here, for about a week they got to “skate together, compete on the same rink as the US national champions … and receive elite coaching from the best in the business.”
As the WSJ noted, the sport is still “scarred by a 1961 crash that wiped out the entire US team on its way to the world championships” and that “the scenario [along the Potomac River] was the return of [that] nightmare.” The Skating Club of Boston claimed six people associated with it were on the plane – two teenagers, their mothers and a married couple of Russian world champions-turned coaches. A few hundred miles away in greater Washington, skating rinks are mourning at least eight other child skaters, as well as their parents and coaches…” It was the “next generation” of our sports heroes who are no more. Sad to say, their Bells toll for all of us.
Davd Soul
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