World champions, US skaters on board

Former world champions Yevgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov

Agencies WASHINGTON

Russian-born ice skating coaches and former world champions Yevgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov were among at least 13 senior skaters and coaches on board the American Airlines plane that crashed into the Potomac river in Washington DC on Wednesday night, according to the Kremlin and multiple Russian news outlets.

Shishkova and Naumov, who were married to each other, won the world championships in pairs figure skating in 1994 and had reportedly lived in the United States since at least 1998, where they trained young ice skaters. The couple was reported to have been returning from the competition and travelling with a group of young skaters.

US Figure Skating, the sport’s domestic governing body, said athletes, coaches and family members were returning from the national development camp held in conjunction with the US figure skating championships in Kansas. Their identities have yet to be confirmed.

“We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims’ families closely in our hearts,” it said in a statement. Russia’s Mash news outlet published a list of 13 skaters, many of them the children of Russian émigrés to the United States, who it said were believed to have been on the plane. 

Inna Volyanskaya, a former skater who competed for the Soviet Union and was a coach at the Washington figure skating club, was also reported to have been on board. Tributes were quickly paid across the sporting world as news of the crash emerged. The International Skating Union, the governing body of the sport. said that the global skating community was “deeply shocked by the tragic accident”.