Frozen in Time: The Enduring Legacy of the 1961 U.S. Figure Skating Team - Softcover

Nichols, Nikki

Softcover

ISBN 10: 157860334X ISBN 13: 9781578603343

Publisher: Clerisy Press, 2008

Synopsis

Read the deeply moving and impeccably researched account of the events surrounding the plane crash that killed the 1961 US figure skating team.

Only once has the United States lost an entire national team to disaster: 1961, when all eighteen members of the US figure skating team died in the crash of Sabena Flight 548. Sixteen family members, coaches, and friends died with them. Frozen in Time takes you, for the first time ever, inside the lives of these skaters, revealing their friendships and romances, rivalries, sacrifices, and triumphs.

The skaters you’ll read about were the top finishers at the 1961 US National Championships. Winning a medal at Nationals earned each skater passage aboard Sabena Flight 548, a state-of-the-art Boeing 707. The plane would take them to Brussels, where they planned to board a new plane for Prague, host city of the 1961 World Figure Skating Championships. Some of the skaters brought parents or older siblings as chaperones. Coaches and judges also boarded the plane, and some of them brought spouses and children. When the plane crashed in a Belgian field on February 15, entire families were shattered, and the American skating program suffered a staggering blow that threatened to cripple it for many years.

Frozen in Time takes you on a journey to experience the highly competitive US National and North American championships of that fateful year. This story takes place in the final days of what now seems like an antique era, when the world was black and white, when figure skating was not a well-publicized sport. The book portrays strong, accomplished women leading unconventional lives on a national stage in a conservative era. The story of the Owen and Westerfeld women―along with all the dedicated athletes―transcends the world of sport and touches the human heart. It is one of the most powerful and tragic stories in the history of American sports.

“. . . a reverential tribute. Skating enthusiasts will want to add this to the shelf.”
―Publishers Weekly

About this title

About the Author

Nikki Nichols is a senior writer for International Figure Skating Magazine and also serves as a copyeditor for the magazine. She has written for Skating Magazine, Indianapolis Monthly, and numerous other trade publications and journals. Nikki had successful careers in television news and public relations before writing this, her first book. She skates competitively, having won a gold medal at the Indiana State Championships, a gold and silver at the 2004 Midwestern Adult Sectional, and a bronze medal at the 2007 US Adult Figure Skating Championships in the Interpretive event. She is a two-time finalist in the adult silver ladies free skate at the US Adult Nationals. She also notched a fifth-place finish in Adult Gold Pairs at the 2007 Adult Nationals, which she did with her pairs partner and husband, Michael Cunningham. The two had their first child, Thomas, in April of 2008. They reside just south of Indianapolis, Indiana.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The bone-buckling February frost clung to the windows of the Philadelphia Figure Skating Club and Humane Society. “Humane Society?” skaters would ask quizzically as they read the signs on the rink doors, before they burst into laughter.

The arena name had nothing at all to do with the rescue of animals as one would expect. Rather, this humane society endeavored to rescue people. Its ties to the skating rink came almost a century earlier, when the club was first formed as a gentlemen’s athletic club, which also served to rescue poor souls who crashed into icy Pennsylvania ponds while skating. The club members even carried badges that made them a sort of civilian police entity.

The Philadelphia Skating Club and Humane Society was the first figure skating club in the United States and was host to the first-ever U.S. Championships, giving it the storied past that qualified it for “sacred ground” status. Once the indoor rink was built, the “humane society” portion of the name stuck.

Whatever the origins of its name, the lobby’s warmth could not come fast enough for the weary travelers, who just the night before had landed on a snow-dusted tarmac before driving to the hotel they would call home for five days. Wakeup calls for three, four, or five in the morning were not the usual for guests, but these guests were tenacious in their quest for victory―they were the figure skating elite from two countries.

The Americans and Canadians all arrived at the heavily arched rink building, their earmuffs and gloves bundling their extremities in a fierce fight against the cold. Inside, the frigid air would be exacerbated by wind created by skating fast, a gust that felt more like a jet stream against their chafed faces. Mara and Dud made their way to the practice ice rink, holding hands as usual.

A lone ice monitor ushered the first of the groggy, sleepy-eyed skaters to the rink door, with coffee-slurping coaches tailing behind. Their names were called in militaristic fashion.

“Maria and Otto Jelinek.”

“Here.”

“Dudley Richards and Maribel Y. Owen.”

“Here.”

“Gertrude Desjardins and Maurice Lafrance.”

“Present.”

Names continued to ring out. Most of these teams had never competed against each other before. However, Maria and Otto Jelinek, a sister-and-brother team favored to win the gold, had met Mara Owen and Dudley Richards while skating exhibitions in America. The two teams greeted each other with the same sincere handshakes, hugs, and pecks on the cheek that one would expect from friends returning to summer camp. The North American Championships to them were almost not a competition, but more of a class reunion in this closely knit world.

Maria and Otto originally hailed from Czechoslovakia. Their parents had defected from the communist regime years earlier so Maria and Otto could live a life of freedom. When the Jelineks won their Canadian national title in 1961, they earned passage to the World Championships in Prague. The Czech government threatened to have them arrested if they entered the country. The International Skating Union, in turn, threatened to remove the event from Prague if the Jelineks were harassed in any way. A reluctant truce had been brokered on their behalf, but the Jelineks confided in Mara and Dud their fear of returning to their homeland.

A plan was hatched. The Jelineks and Mara and Dud came to an agreement that the safest way to be ignored by the Czechs was to arrive on the American team plane. The Canadian and American planes were departing at roughly the same time. It was decided the Jelineks would meet the Americans at Idlewild Airport on departure day and organize a switch with someone so they could fly with the Americans. This way, the Jelineks would be much less noticeable when they returned to Prague, and they’d feel safer.

The camaraderie extended beyond the pairs event. Laurence Owen and Canadian Wendy Griner were the reigning ice queens of the event. They were both the darlings of the sport, and their admiration for each other was natural. Laurence, Wendy, U.S. men’s champion Bradley Lord, and Canadian men’s champion Don Jackson spent time discussing their triumphs and, when spotting them together, photographers snapped as many pictures as they could. The young skaters basked in the attention, smiling and posing, and carrying on as if there wasn’t a competition at all. Laurence’s one-of-a-kind smile eclipsed all others in photographs― every eye being drawn to her first by her uncanny magnetism.

Edition details

• Publisher: Clerisy Press
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 157860334X
• ISBN 13: 9781578603343
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 264