For figure skating family, plane crash has unimaginable link to past tragedy

I did not know any of the members of the U.S. figure skating family who died in Wednesday’s tragic accident involving an American Airlines plane and a military helicopter.

Yet I am among those who deeply mourn for them.

Figure skating in the United States is an extended family that includes journalists, despite our best (and necessary) efforts to keep the appropriate relative distance from people we write about so that we can tell the stories that need to be told.

In none of the other sports I covered on a regular basis have I found athletes, coaches and officials as accessible, open-hearted and helpful as in figure skating.

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