‘They were guiding me’ Maxim Naumov honors late parents in Olympic debut

Figure skater Maxim Naumov made an emotional Olympic debut at the Milano Cortina Games on Tuesday, delivering a poignant performance just over a year after his parents were tragically killed in a plane crash. The athlete spoke of feeling their guiding presence throughout his routine.

"I felt like I was guided by them today," Naumov told reporters. "With every glide and step that I made on the ice, I couldn't help but feel their support. They were guiding me from one element to another." He concluded his skate on his knees, looking skyward. "I didn't know if I was going to cry, smile or laugh, and all I could do was look up and say, 'Look what we just did.'"

Naumov's parents, Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, were 1994 world champions in pairs figure skating who later became coaches. They were among the 67 people who died in January 2025 when an American Airlines flight collided mid-air with an Army helicopter near Washington, D.C.

The crash claimed the lives of 28 figure skating coaches, young athletes, and parents returning from a development camp.

As the 24-year-old awaited his score, he held up a childhood photograph of himself holding hands with his parents, prompting cheers from spectators at the Milano Ice Skating Arena.

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"It's the picture of me the first time on the ice when I was three years old. I carry them so I never, ever forget," he explained, planting a kiss on the image. "They're right here in my cross-body bag, so it's literally here on my chest, on my heart."

He added, "I wanted them to sit in the kiss-and-cry with me and experience the moment, look up at the scores, and just live in this moment. They deserve to be sat right next to me like they always have been."

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Skating to Frederic Chopin's "Nocturne No. 20," Naumov opened with a quadruple Salchow, finishing his program looking upwards and smiling before covering his eyes. Despite initially questioning whether to continue competing after the tragedy, he found comfort in skating. He expressed satisfaction with his score of 85.65, stating, "I just wanted to go out there and put my heart out, really leave everything out there, have no regrets at all after the end of that programme, and that's exactly what I felt."

Naumov, who said he "couldn't be more proud of myself and my team," will compete again on Friday in the free skate, where the top 24 performers from the short program will vie for medals.

The crash was the deadliest US aviation disaster since November 2001. Last week, a bipartisan group of US House lawmakers announced plans to introduce legislation addressing safety recommendations in the wake of the incident, with leading members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the Armed Services Committee vowing to work "expeditiously on legislation to ensure a crash like this can never happen again."