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Russian world champion figure skaters are among the crash victims

Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, pictured at the 1995 World Figure Skating Championships in England.  Russian authorities confirmed they were on board the American Eagle flight that crashed after a collision near Washington, D.C.
Chris Cole
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Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, pictured at the 1995 World Figure Skating Championships in England. Russian authorities confirmed they were on board the American Eagle flight that crashed after a collision near Washington, D.C.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed to reporters that Russian World Champions — and husband and wife — Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova were on board the flight that crashed.

"Yes, we see that the sad news is true. And there were other of our citizens," said Peskov, whose wife is a champion figure skater herself.

Naumov and Shishkova were on both the Soviet and Russian figure skating teams and won the World Championships in pairs figure skating in 1994.

They moved to the U.S. in 1998 and appear to have stayed involved in the sport: They are both listed as coaches on the website of the Skating Club of Boston.

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Rachel Treisman
Rachel Treisman (she/her) is a writer and editor for the Morning Edition live blog, which she helped launch in early 2021.