Maribel Owen

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Maribel Yerxa Owen (born April 25, 1940 – died February 15, 1961) was a United States figure skating champion in the Pairs competition.

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[edit] Career

The first child of Guy Owen and Maribel Vinson, she was named for her mother. From a young age she began skating in the Pairs competition. Under her mother's tutelage, in 1956 at age 15, she and her partner won the National Junior Pairs title following which she appeared as a featured performer in the highly successful Boston Skating Club's "Ice Chips" show.

A student at Boston University, Maribel Owen majored in sociology and anthropology while continuing to participate in competitive ice skating. With partner Dudley Richards, she was a member of the 1960 United States Olympic team at Squaw Valley, California. The following year she and Richards won the U.S. Pairs figure skating national championship at Colorado Springs, Colorado and as a result they were part of the American team that was scheduled to compete in the World Championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

[edit] Death

Maribel Y. Owen was 20 years old when, along with the rest of the U.S. skating team, she died with her sister and mother in the Sabena Flight 548 aircraft crash near Brussels, Belgium while on their way to Prague.

She is interred next to her mother and sister in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

[edit] See Also

[edit] External links

U.S. Figure Skating biography

Remembering Flight 548: Shattered dreams

[edit] References

  • Nichols, Nikki (2006). Frozen in Time: The Enduring Legacy of the 1961 U.S. Figure Skating Team. Emmis Books. ISBN 1578602602. 

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