A former Russian figure skater turned coach in Northern Virginia worked with several of the victims of the Potomac crash and a had a close relationship with the former top-ranked junior figure skater in the country.
“I don’t have words; I have only tears,” said Sergey Korovin, a coach from the Skating Club of Northern Virginia, as he stood above a memorial dedicated to the young figure skaters killed in the fatal American Airlines collision with a Black Hawk helicopter Wednesday night.
The words might never come but as Korovin peered past flowers to the ice, he remembered the skaters — children — that he coached for years, like Everly and Alydia Livingston, who died in the midair collision alongside their parents, Donna and Peter. He said the plane crash also killed his co-coach.
Over the past four years, Korovin worked closely with one of the victims, 14-year-old Franco Aparicio, who was one of the brightest young stars in U.S. Figure Skating.
Korovin said he had no doubt that Aparicio would have become an Olympian.
“He was like flying on the ice. He could stay on the ice for like two hours straight,” he said.
Aparicio was killed in the plane crash with his father, Luciano, who Korovin described as supportive.
“It’s hard to lose them, but when you’re thinking about his mother and two sisters what they’re going through,” Korovin said as he started to choke up.
A day after the deadly crash, the Skating Club of Northern Virginia and Washington Figure Skating Club issued an Instagram statement saying the two organizations remain “deeply committed” to supporting their skaters, their families and the wider figure-skating community.
“This heartbreaking accident has shaken the local skating community in Virginia, Maryland and D.C. — as well as in Boston and across the nation,” the statement reads.
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