Laurence Owen
Laurence Rochon " Laurie " Owen ( born May 9, 1944 in San Francisco, California, † February 15, 1961 in Mountain Kampenhout, Belgium) was an American figure skater who started in a single run.
Laurence Owen was the daughter of the nine-time U.S. champion in figure skating, Maribel Vinson and Canadian figure skater Guy Owen. Her older sister Maribel was also a figure skater. Both were trained by her mother. The first eight years, she grew up in Berkeley, in 1952 before the family returned to Winchester, Massachusetts after the death of her father.
In 1959, Owen national junior champion. A year later, she was at her first participation in the senior championships third parties and thus qualified for the Olympic Games in Squaw Valley, where they finished sixth. In the subsequent World Cup they finished ninth.
On January 29, 1961 Owen in Colorado Springs U.S. Champion. A little later she also won the North American Championships. After her victory, she became a media sensation and was nicknamed " The Winchester Pixie ". She appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine. In it she has been called " America's most exciting girl skater ". Owen was planning how to study their mother at Radcliffe College and eventually become a writer.
As reigning U.S. champion Laurence Owen was, as her sister Maribel, who had become, along with Dudley Richards reigning pair skating champion and her mother, Maribel Vinson, both trained on board the Sabena flight 548, which they bring the World Cup in Prague should. The night flight should stop over in Brussels. There, however, the pilot had to take break and new start-up, to try it on a different runway landing approach. Here, the plane crashed on farmland in mountain Kampenhout. All 72 passengers, the crew and a farmer on the ground were killed, including the entire 18- member U.S. team and their 16 relatives. The World Cup in Prague was canceled. The mortal remains of the Vinson - Owen were transferred to the United States and in Story Chapel Columbarium the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, buried. 2011 to Owen, as well as the entire U.S. team was killed at that time, be included in the National Hall of Fame.