Winter Olympics: Maxim Naumov dedicates short program to parents lost in last year’s D.C. plane crash ...Middle East

MILAN — There was a stillness in the air, a calmness within him as he dug his skates into center ice at the Milano Ice Skating Arena Tuesday night.

There were no nerves, none of his usual jitters, no doubts.

“It felt unlike anything that I’ve ever done before, this competition was so different,” he said later. “Usually I’m a little jittery and kind of I rush a little bit, and I felt none of that here, the calm, the stillness, the confidence.”

With the Milano Cortina Olympic Games men’s short program just seconds away, the biggest night of his lifetime right in front of him, Maxim Naumov was at peace.

And then the music started and Naumov, the 24-year-old U.S. figure skater, began skating as if he was being guided by a force beyond his control, skating like a young man who knew he was in good hands.

Because he was.

And then it was over, Naumov, back at center ice, this time on his knees, his head, his eyes tilted toward the heavens.

“It’s almost like I closed my eyes and I opened them again, and I was on my knees at the end and just looking up and saying, ‘Man, look at what we did,’” Naumov said.

Naumov, skating in an Olympics he seemed destined for since birth, Games that came 374 days after his parents Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, former World champion pairs skaters for Russia, were killed over the Potomac River in a mid-air collision, delivered the skate of a lifetime, posting a season’s best score of 85.65 for a performance that was a testament to his resilience and courage and above all a fitting tribute to his late parents.

“I tried to lean as much into that as I possibly could,” said Naumov, who finished the night in 14th place but less than eight points out of fourth.  “And man, it worked to be able to just have two minutes and 50 seconds to show what you’ve been working on for 19 years. And to be able to make it happen when it matters and when it counts, there’s no feeling like it at all, ever.”

Ilia Malinin, the two-time World champion from the U.S., leads the competition going into Thursday’s free skate.

Malinin was supposed to open with a quad Axel, the sport’s hardest jump and one that only Malinin has successfully landed in competition. Instead, he decided to play it safe, if you can call a quad lutz safe. From there he skated with increasing momentum and confidence, landing a triple Axel and then quad lutz and then electrifying the largely American crowd in a three-quarters full arena with a back flip for a 108.16 score, more than five points up on Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama (103.07).

Andrew Torgashev, the Orange County-based skater also making his Olympic debut, also had a big night Tuesday.

Torgashev opened with a quad toeloop, then followed it with a triple Axel. When Torgashev hit a triple flip, triple toeloop combination, his coach Rafael Arutunian, standing rinkside behind the boards, turned and fist-bumped Brandon Frazier, a former Olympic and World Championships gold medalist and another one of Torgashev’s coaches.

Torgashev’s season best score of 88.94 put him briefly into the lead halfway through the competition and was good enough for eighth place by the end of the night and in contention for a top five finish.

After his skate Tuesday night, Naumov held up for the television cameras a photograph of him as a small boy standing in between his parents on the ice.

“It’s the picture of me (with his parents) the first time on the ice when I was 3 years old,” he said. “I carry it so I’d never forget about it.

Vadim Naumov and Shishkova won the 1994 World pairs title and then settled in the Hartford area, where Maxim was born in August, 2001. Their son followed them into the family business.

Maxim Naumov, coached by his father, won the U.S. junior title and placed in the top five at the World Junior Championships in 2020. He finished fourth in the men’s division at the 2025 U.S. championships in Wichita, just missing a spot on the World Championships squad. One of his last conversations with his parents was about what he could do to move up a spot and get onto the Olympic team in 2026.

Then on January 29, 2025, Naumov’s parents were aboard American Eagle Flight 5342 when it collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac on the jet’s approach to Reagan National Airport. All 64 persons aboard the flight were killed.

In the wake of the collision, there were mornings where Naumov struggled to get out of bed to go to training, nights where he tried to make sense of the tragedy but couldn’t.

Eventually he found the strength to carry on. Eventually, through his pain, he found the improvement that carried him into third place at last month’s U.S. championships and a spot on the Olympic team.

“The whole year has taught me so much more about myself than any other previous year,” Naumov said. “You know, the hardship and the difficulty of this season has been actually one of the biggest tools for my growth as a human being.

“You’re going to have times and moments where horrible things are going to happen, but knowing for a fact that no matter what’s thrown at you, you’re going to remain standing no matter what.

“I know I’m not alone.”

Indeed Naumov felt his parents’ presence throughout a short program that opened with a quad Salchow and included three triple jumps, including a triple lutz, triple toeloop combination.

“I felt almost like a hand on my back pushing me forward, and just feeling my parents guiding me from one element to another, and just kind of keeping me grounded, almost like a chess piece on a chess board from one element to another,” he said. “But unlike any other feeling I’ve ever felt.

“I think just feeling the presence of parents, I felt it throughout the whole entire experience, from the warm to the six-minute warm up on the ice, just the calmness and stillness I felt through my whole body when I hit my first position before the music started. Usually I’m like, like, this a little bit,” he continued, shaking his body, “but just in my mind, I was able to calm myself. If you can keep your mind calm, then you can keep your body calm, and that’s exactly what I felt.”

It seemed fitting that the program ended with Naumov on his knees, looking up as if giving thanks for an answered prayer.

“I finished on my knees and I didn’t know if I was going to cry, smile or laugh, and all I could do was just look up and say, ‘Look what we just did,’ Naumov said. “I said it in English. I said in Russian. And it’s true. We did it together.”

He was upbeat afterward, although in speaking with reporters, there were moments where his eyes and the pauses in his speech revealed the depth and mix of his emotions.

“I wanted them to sit in the kiss-and-cry with me and experience the moment, look up at the scores,” he said. “They deserve to be sat right next to me, like they always have been.”

And he deserved to hear them tell him how proud they were of him, although he skated with the strength of a son who never doubted that.

“You know, tragedy and very difficult times will unfortunately happen to all of us at a certain moment in your life. I just hope that my story can empower or inspire somebody to continue to push themselves onward because that’s what we can do. That’s what we have to do.

“The only way out is through.

“And everyone has the ability to do that. To remain strong in your mind, to have willpower and do things out of love instead of fear. I think if you’re able to do that, whatever it is that you’re going through, however big or small, you can have small wins every day, and you can do things that you never thought that you could.”

Related Articles

Hence then, the article about winter olympics maxim naumov dedicates short program to parents lost in last year s d c plane crash was published today ( Wednesday 11/02/2026 - 01:34 AM ) and is available on Los Angeles Daily News ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.

Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Winter Olympics: Maxim Naumov dedicates short program to parents lost in last year’s D.C. plane crash )

Also on site :

• Russia exposed plot to blow up Black Sea gas pipelines – Putin
• Police: Two killed in shooting at West San Jose shopping center
• OpenAI COO says ‘we have not yet really seen AI penetrate enterprise business processes’