The city had tried for years to host the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, and to get a direct flight to the northeast.

Several coaches and skaters with the United States figure skating team were on the flight from Wichita to Washington, D.C., that crashed Wednesday night, according to U.S. Figure Skating. The flight is not believed to have any survivors.

Alydia and Everly Livingston, 11 and 14, of Ashburn, Virginia, were thrilled to make it on the National Development Team, whose camp was held in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita.

Just days after figure skaters, family and coaches from across the United States came together in Wichita, a tragic plane crash has left the U.S. Figure Skating community reeling.

Maxim Naumov flew home after competing in the U.S. Championships just days before his parents Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov were killed in plane crash

Sean O'Reilly, general manager of the Wichita Ice Center, said his team got to know numerous athletes who had been in Wichita for a development camp after the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

John Donnelly, the chief of Washington's fire department, said at a news conference Thursday that 28 bodies have been found and efforts had shifted from "a search-and-rescue operation to a recovery operation.

Even at a club that has produced countless elite-level skaters - where the competition is as tough as it gets - the two stood out. "They had been sought out and identified as the future of the sport," the club's CEO Doug Zeghibe told me while standing alongside the rink where the two athletes trained day in and day out.