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Just one year after losing his parents in a tragic plane crash, figure skater Maxim Naumov is headed to the Winter Olympics to represent the United States.
Naumov, 24, was officially named to the U.S. Olympic team, which will compete in the Milan Cortina Games starting Feb. 6. He was among three men named to the figure skating team, with Ilia Malinin and Andrew Torgashev.
Naumov lost his parents, 1994 world figure skating champions Evgenia “Zhenya” Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, after an American Airlines flight collided with a US Army Black Hawk helicopter in Washington, DC on January 29, 2025.
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Maxim Naumov holds a photograph of his parents after competing in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships at the Enterprise Center on January 10, 2026 in St. Louis, Missouri. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
67 lives were lost in the tragic crash, of which 28 were among the figure skating community. Naumov’s parents were among many who traveled back from Wichita, Kansas – the site of the US Figure Skating National Development Camp.
Naumov was in Wichita for the camp, but he was not on the plane.
Three days before he was named to the U.S. Olympic team, Naumov was emotional after skating in their honor at the U.S. championships, holding up a photo of himself as a 3-year-old boy with his parents on either side of him.
“To share the vulnerability with the audience and I feel their energy back has been something I will remember for the rest of my life,” Naumov told reporters after his skate.
Maxim Naumov competes in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships at the Enterprise Center on January 10, 2026 in St. Louis. (Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
His parents were his coaches as he grew into a potential Olympian. But after their deaths, Naumov didn’t know if he would even try to make the team.
But he stayed true to the goal they always had together, and it has come to fruition.
“That’s what my parents and I — one of our last conversations was about exactly that, and you know, it would mean the world to me to do that. That’s what we’re fighting for,” Naumov said last Thursday.
Maxim Naumov reacts at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships on March 30, 2025 at the TD Garden in Boston. (Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire)
The target has been checked. Now Naumov will hope for a medal in Italy next month.
