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

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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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Amber Glenn’s path to Grand Prix Final, figure skating stardom a decade-long journey

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Amber Glenn’s path to Grand Prix Final, figure skating stardom a decade-long journey

(Note: After this story was published, Amber Glenn won the Grand Prix Final (above), becoming the first U.S. woman to take that title since 2010)

Damon Allen remembers well how he felt about Amber Glenn after seeing her performances in the junior event at the 2014 U.S. Championships.

“I thought, ‘This girl is going to be the next star,’” Allen recalled last week.

There is, of course, a tendency in figure skating to anoint the next big thing prematurely. Still, Allen’s reaction did not seem impulsively hasty.

After all, the 14-year-old Glenn had shown preternatural poise in winning the title. Her free skate earned a score better than those of all except the three medalists in the senior event, despite juniors having one fewer scoring element.

“This was not an overnight success, to say the least,” Glenn told NBC Sports earlier this season.

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Elyce Lin-Gracey, whose skating has Olympian roots, takes breakout season to Skate America

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Elyce Lin-Gracey, whose skating has Olympian roots, takes breakout season to Skate America

Elyce Lin-Gracey’s skating career began with a persistence that impressed her mother.

The first time Rhoda Lin brought her daughter to an ice rink, the 4-year-old girl took the ice and fell. Then got up and fell again. Got up, fell again. Got up and ... well, you get the idea.

The one thing she didn’t do was give up.

“Wow,” Lin remembers herself thinking, “maybe this is something she could do. So, we started some lessons, and she grasped some skills pretty easily and would keep plugging away at those skills she found more difficult. She kept going and going and kind of became what she is.”

Lin-Gracey is, at age 17, one of the sport’s biggest surprises early in this season, the first she has begun as a senior-level international competitor. She makes her senior Grand Prix debut this week at Skate America in Allen, Texas.

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They sparked two decades of U.S. ice dance excellence

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They sparked two decades of U.S. ice dance excellence

Not long after Ben Agosto switched from singles skating to ice dance at age 10, he faced up to the reality that winning medals on a global stage might be impossible for a U.S. ice dancer.

Why wouldn’t he think that way, given the evidence?  After all, one of his first coaches, Susie Wynne, had retired from competition after finishing fourth at the 1990 World Championships with Joe Druar, having decided, as she puts it, “We had topped out.  That was the best we could do.”

That fourth place would, in fact, be the best finish for a U.S. team at worlds over nearly two decades since Judy Blumberg and Michael Seibert won their third straight world bronze in 1985, a span in which Soviet and Russian teams won 15 of 18 world titles, four of five Olympic titles and nine of 15 Olympic medals.

Until Agosto and Tanith Belbin ended that drought in 2005.

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Changes in skating rules to limit jumps may make Malinin's record literally one for the ages

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Changes in skating rules to limit jumps may make Malinin's record literally one for the ages

There is an old saying in sports that goes, “Records are made to be broken.”

That may not apply to the world record men’s free skate score Ilia Malinin posted in winning the 2024 World Championships – as well as to several women’s world records – if the International Skating Union passes proposals limiting jumps at its biennial Congress this June in Las Vegas.

Should that happen, everyone should have their asterisks ready, as the ISU once again will have to create yet another chronological subdivision on its already confusing record lists.

While the formal agenda for the ISU Congress will not be made public until next week, the preliminary agenda includes the following changes to singles free skate programs recommended by the singles and pairs technical committee:

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