2029 After a tragic plane crash killed the entire US figure skating team

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Watch the CNN Original Series “Decades in Sports,” which will be premiering on August 2 and available to stream on the CNN app the next day. Across six episodes, the series explores the defining moments, athletes and cultural shifts that shaped sports over the past six decades, from the television revolution and Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, right up to the impact of social media on today’s biggest sports stars.















Perhaps no athlete had a bigger impact on their sport than Peggy Fleming did for figure skating in the 1960s.

For any athlete, heading into an Olympic Games with the hopes of a nation on their shoulders is a heavy burden to carry. Add to that a devastating tragedy that takes the lives of almost all of their contemporaries, and it’s an entirely different proposition altogether.

This is the burden a 19-year-old Fleming had to carry heading into the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble.

Rewind seven years prior to February 14, 1961, and the US figure skating team was boarding Sabena Flight 548 from New York bound for Brussels, with their final destination being Prague, Czechoslovakia, where the World Figure Skating Championships were being held.

They were looking to defend the world title Carol Heiss had won for a fifth straight time a year prior, but tragically, the team never got the chance, as the Boeing 707 operating the flight crashed on approach to Brussels Airport and killed the entire US figure skating team.
 
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