ON SATURDAY, JAN. 4, about three weeks before the U.S. Figure Skating Championships began in Wichita, Kansas, the Skating Club of Boston held its traditional send-off dinner. Dozens of skaters and their families filled the long, glass-walled lounge on the second floor that overlooks the club's central ice sheet, and they ate, drank, laughed and reveled in the shared excitement over what lay ahead.
The club had qualified 18 skaters to compete at nationals, along with an additional 12 who would take part in the national development camp that followed -- three days of high-level instruction designed to elevate a crop of rising American talents as young as 9. Everyone dined on chicken, steak, salmon and vegetables, and there were two cakes with "Good Luck" written on them -- one chocolate, the other vanilla -- from a much-loved nearby bakery. Jared Sedlis, a 19-year-old singles skater, recalled sitting at a table with several others, including Jinna Han, a 12-year-old headed to her first camp. "Jinna and I," Sedlis said, "went back and got both flavors."
There was similar excitement across the country -- dozens of top young skaters at clubs throughout the U.S. who couldn't wait to be in Wichita and put on the red jacket that identified them as one of the best in their age group. The road to everything they dreamed about ran through the national development camp.
"When you are in the younger categories, that is the highest you can reach," said Kalle Strid, who coached three skaters from Virginia who attended.
One of his students, 12-year-old Brielle Beyer, was attending for the first time. She had recently switched to virtual learning so she could focus on her skating. "She begged and begged her parents to allow her to be homeschooled so she could train more," Strid said.
A skater from another Virginia rink, Olivia Ter, also 12, had qualified for Wichita by performing to music she had chosen, a Russian song to honor her heritage. According to a coach at her rink, Maria Elena Pinto, she was "over the moon" to go to the camp.
They all were. It was the place they had always hoped to be.
Thursday, Jan. 23 -- Friday, Jan. 24 -- U.S. National Championships
AT NATIONALS, THE young skaters in Wichita for the camp were impossible to miss: Wearing those red jackets, they packed together in the stands during each session, staying for every performance, tossing stuffed animals on the ice and running to the side boards to congratulate athletes who trained with them.
Brielle had worked so hard for her jacket. Her dad, Andy, said earning a spot to the camp was "one of her biggest life goals," and the jacket was validation of all the progress she had made in the past year.
When she got the jacket Thursday, she FaceTimed her dad to show it off.
"We were all just so proud of her," he said, "but she was also proud of herself."
When Brielle was 4 months old, she was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a cancer that develops from immature nerve cells. Her mom, Justyna, exhaustively researched the best care. At 9 months old, Brielle underwent a seven-hour surgery that put her on a ventilator for several days, and for the next few years, underwent dozens of MRIs under a sedation procedure.
"But it never seemed to affect Brielle," Andy said. "She was always living in the moment, always so happy, just radiant."
In her downtime, Brielle liked to play a Roblox game collecting pets with her friends and brother. A few weeks before the trip to Wichita, Andy said, she was scammed by someone who took all of her pets.
He said she was devastated for one night, then told him, "It's just a game, Dad." She had the camp to look forward to.
Wichita was a chance to feel what the next level was all about, a chance to see what she -- and everyone -- was chasing. Brielle and her training partners, Cory Haynos and Edward Zhou, texted and called Strid to tell him what they had learned each day. Jinna told Misha Mitrofanov and Alisa Efimova, who trained alongside her at the Skating Club of Boston, how inspired she was watching them win their first pairs title.
The decade-plus age gap between them didn't matter. Jinna had grown close to Mitrofanov and Efimova because of all they shared: Coaches Olga Ganicheva and Aleksey Letov, of course, but also countless TikTok videos they watched during breaks, jokes about Jinna's mouthful of braces and empathizing over a new jump or spin.
To outsiders, a largely individual sport like skating -- with its varying ages, genders and disciplines -- might seem a lonely pursuit. But the connections formed between elite-level skaters, particularly those based at the same club, become something akin to family.
How could they not? At many clubs, skaters spend up to 12 hours a day, six or seven days per week at the facility. In between on-ice sessions, they do fitness work or dance together. They eat and attend virtual school together. They play cards, write papers and read books together. They get hurt together, they rehab together. Particularly for those training under the same coach, a bond develops that transcends age.
That week in Wichita, the skaters from Boston gathered at a café that specializes in Pop-Tarts to celebrate Jinna's birthday on Friday.
She was 13, officially a teenager. The café put a candle in her frosted Pop-Tart and everyone sang. Jinna was boisterous and bubbly because that's how she always was.
"She had that fire regardless of anything," said men's singles skater Jimmy Ma, smiling as he fell into a sing-song tone. "'Hi, Jimmy. Hi, Ms. Olga. Hi, Misha. Hi, Alisa. Hi, guys.' Every morning.
"Jinna was somebody that was a good reminder for me of who I need to be," he said.
Saturday, Jan. 25 -- U.S. National Championships
AT THE DOWNTOWN Hyatt Regency Hotel on Saturday night, an alum of the Skating Club of Boston was inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame.
Albertina "Tina" Noyes had practiced her acceptance speech over and over. She had written 15 drafts, and thought out everything, from her black sequin dress and her red shoes -- a nod to the state of Kansas -- to how to prevent herself from crying.
More than six decades ago, Noyes was like Jinna -- a 12-year-old who adored the older skaters at the club. They were wildly successful back then. There's a photo in the Skating Club of Boston of a group of skaters who won the U.S. championships in 1961, and Noyes -- the novice ladies champion -- is holding the trophy. "I was like the mascot," she said.
Two weeks later, some of those friends in that photo headed to Prague, Czechoslovakia, for the World Championships. Their plane crashed in Belgium, killing everyone aboard, including 18 skaters and 16 officials, judges, coaches and family members.
Noyes was getting ready for school that morning when her mom received a call from the mother of Gregory Kelley, a 16-year-old skater who perished in the flight along with his sister Nathalie. "They're all gone," Noyes' mom screamed.
Noyes, and her young friends, were suddenly the future of U.S. figure skating. She was motivated to be the best skater she could to honor the legacy of her friends.
In her speech Saturday night, she told the crowd that a month after the plane crash, the surviving medalists from nationals skated in a memorial show at Boston Garden. At the end, they walked row by row through the arena, still in their costumes, and held out tin coffee cans for donations to support the future development of figure skating.
"The plane crash and memorial fund in '61 changed the trajectory of my life," she told the group. "Although only 12 years old, I knew I had to be a member of the next Olympic team."
Three years later, she went to her first of two Olympics.
Sunday, Jan. 26 -- U.S. National Championships
ON THE FINAL DAY of competition, 23-year-old Maxim Naumov took the ice for the men's free skate. Coached by his parents, Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, Max had long dreamed of following in their footsteps and reaching the Olympics.
World champions in 1994, Naumov and Shishkova represented Russia in pairs at two Games before moving to the U.S. to coach. They took on world-class skaters and beginners alike, and introduced new training methods. When the Skating Club of Boston built a new facility, Doug Zeghibe, the executive director, said Naumov insisted they include spaces for skaters to practice gymnastics so they could learn better body movement.
Naumov and Shishkova treated their son like every other skater. "It seemed like they knew how to separate the relationship. He was just one of his students," said Jessica Anastasio, a former coach who worked at the International Skating Center of Connecticut, their base for two decades.
But that was also because Naumov and Shishkova treated skaters -- and everyone in the rink -- like family. Marika Manu, a longtime staff member at the Connecticut rink, remembered how they welcomed her, a Romanian-Hungarian émigré, into their community, despite her rudimentary Russian. After she once reminded Naumov to buy his wife flowers for International Women's Day, he turned up every year with bouquets for them both.
"When you think of Vadim and Evgenia, they're one," Anastasio said. "You can't think of Vadim without Evgenia, and you can't think of Evgenia without Vadim."
In Wichita, after a mistake on his opening jump, Max rallied to leap from seventh to fourth, earning a place on the podium for the third consecutive year.
Afterward, Naumov and Shishkova posted a video on Instagram celebrating his accomplishment. In the caption, they wrote:
"Once again, Maxim made us all proud."
Monday, Jan. 27 -- Day 1 of National Development Camp
CORY HAYNOS, 16, was excited for camp so he could show everyone his triple axel. He had managed to land the jump, one of the hardest in figure skating, only a few weeks earlier.
He was at camp again with his close friend and training partner, Edward Zhou. The two skated together in Virginia under the tutelage of Strid and Mikael Olofsson. Edward, also 16, had become one of Strid's first students when he was just 6.
Two seasons ago, at Cory's first camp, Edward had taken him around, introduced him to everyone and made him feel at home. That was how Edward was -- always wanting to meet everyone and make friends.
"He would always talk to everybody and sometimes I had to remind him on the ice, 'Edward, you have to practice,'" Strid said. "Because it was very important for him to practice, but he got distracted [because] he wanted to talk to everybody."
The camp, though, was primarily for work. Broken into groups by age and discipline, the kids spent hours at the Wichita Ice Center, going through lessons and workshops taught by the country's best coaches and former skaters. Everything was designed to focus on each aspect of competing internationally: Jumping and spinning and dance, but also nutrition and mental health and presentation. There were opportunities to showcase skill sets. There were evaluators watching and recording and taking notes.
Mark Mitchell, a three-time U.S. medalist, and 2014 Olympian Gracie Gold ran a drill in which they assessed how consistently skaters landed jumps. Another skater from Virginia, 14-year-old Everly Livingston, stood out.
"It was like she nailed one jump after another," Mitchell said. "And I was like, wow. I wrote on my paper, 'Wow, so consistent, solid, great technique.'"
At another session, Mitchell was looking for skaters to demonstrate jumps so he could point out different techniques and errors. Franco Aparicio, a 13-year-old skater from the Washington Figure Skating Club, volunteered.
"He came over and he said, 'I think I wanna try it.' And I said, 'OK, then let's go for it.' And off he went. That kind of attitude, you just can't find it everywhere," Mitchell said. "He was just so cute and eager to give it a shot."
Cory, though, wasn't able to land the triple axel. Strid urged him to keep trying.
That night, Strid went to dinner with Edward's parents, Kaiyan Mao and Yu Zhou. Edward was academically gifted, taking college classes at just 16. They talked about tough decisions he would have to make soon about his future.
"We were joking about that he had the positive problem of he could get into any college, but he hadn't decided what he wanted to do with his life," Strid said. "We were talking about his bright future and how much he had ahead of him."
Tuesday, Jan. 28 -- Day 2 of National Development Camp
ARE YOU READY? Cause I'm comin' to get you, get you, get you
As "APT." by Bruno Mars and Rosé blared from the facility's speakers, Mitchell and two-time pairs national champion Ashley Cain sent the skaters onto the ice and told them to do whatever felt right. The goal was to teach them how to use their music and movements to infuse meaning into their performances.
"We just put on music and let the kids roam free and let down their walls and let loose and come up with anything that they could," Cain said.
It didn't happen right away. Skaters, even young ones, are drilled about precision and perfection so often, Cain said, that they were hesitant to let go. Skating without pressure or expectation isn't something that comes naturally.
But after a few moments, the reticence lifted. The skaters shook and shimmied, jumped and bopped and bounded around the ice, whirling without caring if their elbows were locked or their backs were arched just so.
At one point, Edward and Franco skated by the coaches and pointed at them, smiling so wide and dancing. Moved, Cain and Mitchell started dancing back.
"Everybody was so happy, and letting loose and giving us so much energy and willing to be vulnerable in front of us," Cain said.
When her group had its chance at the interpretive session, Jinna threw herself into it like she did everything, with joy and passion. She devoured videos of skaters on YouTube and knew everything about skating history, Mitchell said.
"No matter what music I played, she always was pouring her heart out," he said. "That's Jinna."
Before Strid left Tuesday, he found Brielle and Edward. He wanted to remind them, once more, to enjoy themselves at camp. They spent all season focused on results to get there. Now that they were, they should relax and have fun, he told them. When he looked for Cory, however, he couldn't find him. Strid didn't have the chance to say goodbye.
Wednesday, Jan. 29 -- Day 3 of National Development Camp
ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, a smaller group of skaters remained to work on jumps they hadn't quite mastered.
Cory's patience paid off. Before he and his mom boarded the plane home, she texted Strid that he had done it: He had landed the triple axel. Everybody clapped and cheered. Strid sent him his music for the new season -- from his parents' favorite movie, "Gladiator" -- and told him to listen to it when he landed.
Spencer Lane, a 16-year-old from the Skating Club of Boston, posted a photo on Instagram on the last day with his fellow campers. They flashed peace signs and smiled brightly.
Mitchell, who had worked with Spencer, noticed he tended to be too hard on himself because he had just started skating three years ago. He took Spencer aside for a heart-to-heart chat.
Mitchell watched Spencer consistently perform at a high level that week, and told him that the self-deprecation needed to stop. He told Spencer he had caught up.
"Let's move forward and keep pushing," he told him, "because you're on the right path and great things are gonna happen."
Spencer learned all of his triple jumps and was already starting on quads. Ma, a 29-year-old veteran, marveled at his talent and work ethic.
"It took me 10 years to get all my triples when I started learning them, and he did it in two," he said.
Spencer, who was prolific on social media, was grateful for the opportunity to participate in his first national development camp. On Instagram, he thanked Shishkova and Naumov, who stayed until Wednesday to coach him. Spencer said he learned so much information that he could apply to his everyday life.
Spencer's friend Leo Ha, a 17-year-old skater from South Carolina, said that they had talked a few days earlier about the pressures Spencer felt in having everything happen so fast in his skating career.
"There were so many expectations on him," Ha said. "He was afraid that if he failed to meet those expectations that people will be disappointed in him."
Ha told him everything would be OK.
Just before Spencer boarded the plane home, he sent Ha a picture from the airport. His friend seemed happy, Ha said.
"He was in the development team, with the best skaters in the country," he said.
"We just thought he had the best time of his life."
ALEXIS WINCH, 10, was sitting on the couch at home Wednesday night, playing a game on her iPad with a friend. The friend, Alydia Livingston, skated with Winch at the Ashburn Ice House in Virginia and was on a plane with her sister and parents flying back from Wichita.
Around 8:30 p.m., Alexis's dad, Jeff, told her it was time for bed. Alexis put away her iPad and went upstairs.
Minutes later, news broke that a plane on approach for landing and a helicopter collided in Washington, D.C. When it became clear that the plane originated in Wichita, skating communities everywhere were jolted. In Boston, a makeshift phone tree developed among members of the Skating Club to figure out who had made it home and who might be on the plane.
"I was just shaking all night," said Sendis, the skater who had eaten cake with Jinna. "That was such a fearful moment, connecting those dots."
Strid received a call from Brielle's dad, Andy, who was in the airport cell phone lot with his son, Kallen, waiting to pick up his wife and daughter. He couldn't reach them. Andy knew in his gut that his wife and daughter were gone. He started trembling.
Strid and his wife immediately drove to the airport to be with him and Kallen. The four of them stayed for hours in a big-windowed lounge filled with families waiting to have their worst fears confirmed.
"Everyone was sitting up there more or less in silence, all the families," Andy said. "You could see all the flashing lights out there and stuff, and I couldn't bring myself to look out there but it was just constant -- the flashing red in the room. I think we were probably in there until 3 in the morning.
"They brought in some police officer or something and basically told us there were no survivors."
In Boston, Mitrofanov and Efimova found Joon Han, Jinna's father, at the rink. After learning that his wife and only child were on the plane, he didn't know where else to go.
They took him to the home of their coach, Olga Ganicheva, where they could be with several other skaters, including Max Vaumov, who had returned home without his parents.
"We spent all night watching the news and making phone calls to American Airlines to try and find out if somebody is alive or not," Ganicheva said. "Max was very quiet and strong. He just went to the basement and sit there. [But] when on the TV they're showing how [the plane] blow up in the air, he couldn't hold it in anymore."
Around 2:30 a.m., Mitrofanov said, two skaters -- Sedlis and Spencer Howe, who lives with Max -- volunteered to drive Max and Joon to Washington. They didn't want to leave them.
ON THURSDAY AFTERNOON, a group of young girls gathered around a television in the lobby of Ashburn Ice House. Bouquets left by mourners lined the wall. They watched as Alexis and Jeff Winch spoke to a local station about losing four friends and a coach in the crash.
The figure skating world suffered another blow when legendary skater and commentator, Dick Button, died at the age of 95, just hours after the plane crash. Button taught generations of Americans the difference between salchows and lutzes and loops, and was famous for his attention to detail. After hearing the news of Button's death, Mitchell said he imagined the commentator with the skaters.
"I just pictured those little kids of ours being up there and [him] telling them, 'No, stretch your leg and do this and do that,'" Mitchell said.
Two days later, people filed into the Ion International Training Center in Leesburg, Virginia, to lay flowers and toys at a table with a photo of Olivia Ter. She and her mother, Olesya, a pediatrician who moved to the U.S. from Russia, had walked through those doors every day.
Pinto, the coach, remembered Olivia's work ethic as well as her giggle. When Olivia got frustrated, Pinto would draw a bunny on the ice to make her smile, and the two of them often played pranks on Olivia's coach. They'd steal his hat and toss it to each other or make him dance to a Taylor Swift song.
The memories are vivid, the pain fresh. In the hours after the crash, Leo Ha waited for Spencer to send a group chat message. He hoped for a miracle, and that Spencer would somehow text. In his last message to the chat, Spencer had written that he couldn't wait to get new programs for next season.
Ha had to skate Thursday, but wasn't sure that he could.
"How are we gonna skate," he said, "knowing that our friends will never be able to skate again?"
The government has yet to release the names of the victims. According to U.S. Figure Skating, the community lost 28 members: In Virginia, Alydia and Everly Livingston and their parents, Donna and Peter; Cory Haynos and his parents, Roger and Stephanie; Edward Zhou and his parents, Kaiyan Mao and Yu Zhou; Brielle Beyer and her mom, Justyna; Franco Aparicio, his father Luciano and his coach Inna Volyanskaya; Olivia Ter and her mom Olesya Taylor. In Delaware, ice dancer Sean Kay, his mom Julia, his dance partner Angela Yang, and her mom Zheheng Li, as well as their coach Alexandr "Sasha" Kirsanov. And in Boston, Spencer Lane and his mom, Christine Lane; Jinna Han and her mom, Jin Han; and coaches Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova.
"They're considered the future of our sport," Cain said. "I think that's a really difficult part to process."
Mitchell had another camp scheduled this past weekend in Oklahoma City, and he wasn't sure if he could do it. His mind kept going back to Wichita -- all the happy young faces and great moments -- and how 67 lives ended and hundreds more changed within hours.
Mitchell decided that those children in Wichita were so passionate and loved skating so much that he needed to go to Oklahoma City and pass along that love and energy.
"They had fun in those last hours," Mitchell said. "That's how I'm really trying to frame it in my mind. Their last memories and their last things they did was something they love and were having the best time."
ESPN's Elaine Teng and Maria Lawson contributed to this story.