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He had done it. Haynos had landed a triple Axel, one of Skates’s toughest jumps. Also at the perfect time. He had landed his first pure at the age of 16 in December, but this time saw the camp’s coaches who to scout and nurture the country’s future elite masters, saw him.

“I had seen him work on it all week, just struggled to do it,” said Mark Mitchell, one of us art skating in the camp, Thursday in a telephone interview. “So when I saw him, I just said, ‘Oh, my gosh! Cory just landed the triple Axel! ‘And he was so happy, just so happy. “

“The voltage level was out of the charts,” said Mitchell in the camp, which was held for the three days after the end of the US art skating on Sunday. It made Wednesday night’s news all the more intestinal violators, he said.

Some of these athletes, those on the field to get to the highest levels of the sport, and maybe even the national stroke and the Olympics were on an American Airlines flight from Wichita, crashing as it approached the runway in Washington’s Reagan National Airport. Jet, carrying 64 people, including crew, had collided with a military helicopter over the Potomac River. No one on board survived.

Haynos, who described himself on his Instagram as “Figure skating/basketball” and wrote “Johannes 3:36 (punch it up)”, was among those who died. His parents, Roger and Stephanie Haynos, died with him. The Bible verse says that people who believe in Jesus want eternal life.

All sports are local, but youth sports like this are the root systems of communities throughout the country. As the crash’s toll took shape on Thursday, the loss of Haynos and maybe a dozen shook other skaters families, neighbors, skat clubs, schools. There were middle schools and colleges and at least one Girl Scout. Several were from northern Virginia, several others from the Boston area. At least two had trained in Delaware.

Boston skating club, in Norwood, Mass., Confirmed Thursday that former Russian skating champions, Yevgeniya Shishkova, 52, and Vadim Naumov, 55, had died in the crash, like two of their skating students, teens jinna male, 13, and Spencer Lane , 16. The mothers of these skaters were on the run with their children.

Thursday afternoon at Rink in the Boston area, the ice was shiny and empty at a time when skaters and coaches would normally be there to train for the upcoming World Cups and Junior Championships. But the members had chosen not to skate, said Doug Zeghibe, the club’s CEO.

“People have chosen to take a break,” he said. “It feels very appropriate that it has gone silent. It’s creepy, but it feels respectful. “

Some of the club’s best -known and most skilled members and alumni forced to the field on Thursday and sought comfort in their tightly linked ice skating. Olympic figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was there, and so was Dr. Tenley E. Albright, the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal, and Paul George, a former national champion.

“We came here because we had to be together,” Dr. Albright, 89, which was the Olympic Art Skating in 1956. ”We are family. It is a society and the people on the plane, they are also our family. “

“I can’t believe it happened,” she added, turning to Gestus against the ice behind her, “because I imagine them right here.”

Dr. Albright and Mr. George both remembers the first time that a crash destroyed their skating in February 1961, when a plane carrying the entire US art skating crashed in Belgium and killed the 18 team members, judges, coaches, family members and family members and 16 international officials.

Mr. Zeghibe said Thursday that “almost half” of those lost at that time was from the Skating Club of Boston, a disastrous loss that generated “black energy” this year after. It also tore a meager hole in a generation of talent for us art skating, and Wednesday’s crashes are likely to do the same.

But in many ways, this void left in the sport is different. These skaters were those who had not yet made the national team’s big time. Instead, they were the best athletes at the lower levels of the sport: juvenile, intermediate and novice. Like Haynos, they had been invited to the development camp after doing well at important meetings in their parts of the country. At nationals, the group had been invited as spectators, given red jackets in the development team and proudly carried them around Wichita.

At higher -level junior and senior events sat developmental athletes – singles skaters, couples skaters and ice dancers – in the stands together, a violent group of cheering for some skaters, the famous personally, and others who were role models.

“It was hard to miss them,” said Mitchell, a former American national team skater who coached in the development camp with her husband and former Swedish national champion Peter Johansson. Gracie Gold, the Olympic Bronze Medal for the United States, was also among the coaches there and gave the camp’s closing speech before everyone headed for the airport.

During the camp, the young athletes had participated in classes on how to skate better, but also sat through sessions of nutrition, mental health and dance – everything they needed to know to be a top figure skater.

“These are passionate children, the hungry children and super talented,” Mitchell said. “I think that’s what makes it so much harder to deal with.”

The coaches from the camp were on a SMS chain on Wednesday night and talked about the young athletes when one of them asked if anyone else had seen the news of a plane crash in Washington. The plane was derived from Wichita. The coaches shrank to check athletes and parents. American art skating had not booked the flights, so they did not know exactly who had been on the jet.

“Oh, no! We haven’t heard from this one, ”they said. “And what about this one?”

But they knew that athletes who were on their way to Boston had to fly to Washington because they couldn’t get a direct flight home.

Mitchell and Johansson had spoken to Kalle Strid, the personal trainer for three athletes in the camp. He had flown back to the Washington area where he was based before they did.

All three of these athletes died – including Haynos and Brielle Beyer, who proudly noticed on her Instagram page that she was a member of the “2025 National Development Team.” Her skating club said she was 12 years old. Her mother, Justyna Magdalena Beyer, was also on the plane. Only five days ago, Brielle published a video of master Ice Dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who competed and said “They did it incredibly!”

Haynos’ training friend, Edward Zhou, was also on the plane. According to neighbors and employees of the family, both his parents died as well. Like Haynos, Zhou had executed a triple Axel in the camp, Mitchell said.

On their team’s Instagram page, a photo of the two boys in the spring of 2023 shows those posing on the ice, smiling and giving each other bunny ears after gold medal, the headline said.

The caption added, “Only 3% of skaters in the United States earn a gold medal of all kinds a year. We are so proud of you both. “

Haynos, who trains in the Skating Club of Northern Virginia, was one of several athletes and coaches from the Washington area who died. A statement from Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia said three students and six parents from the district were killed in the crash, including two parents who had been school staff.

Like almost all top skaters, especially those with Olympic hopes, life often turned about skating for Haynos and his parents, Roger and Stephanie. There were competitions, practice and most recently a trip from their Home in the Washington suburb of a training camp in Wichita.

“They left the house at 5am in the morning,” said Edward Haynos, Cory’s grandfather, who lived with the family in Annandale, VA. “Every time there is a competition, they go.”

Stephanie Haynos’ sister, Lesley Tranby, said Haynoses became parents later in life when they adopted Cory and his older sister who were away in college as the plane crashed.

Mrs. Tranby said the parents “put their hearts in raising and supporting their children in their dreams.”

Edward Haynos said he had not received official confirmation from the authorities of his family’s fate, but he feared the worst. He stayed up to 1 p.m. 03:00 and watched the news, and on Thursday afternoon he sat at home with the television on hoping for some answers.

“They were all on that flight,” he said. “I can’t tell you anything.”

Frank Quick, a neighbor who lived across the street from the family for 20 years, said Mr. and Ms. Haynos both had worked for Fairfax County Public Schools.

He said Cory took a skating after seeing another neighbor’s daughter enter it. “It was kind of the two neighbors who came in skating at the same time,” he said.

In the Wichita camp, it was clear how far Haynos had come as a skater. Mitchell, the coach, said he hoped someone caught a certain moment on the camera – Haynos and Zhou performed an improvised routine on the ice to the song “Apt.” By Bruno Mars and Rosé burst into the arena. Other skaters and parents surrounded them, roaring with laughter and cheering.

“That’s how I remember these children,” Mitchell said. “And that’s how I always want to remember them.”

Michael D. Shear and Eric Schmitt contributed with reporting.