U.S. figure skater Maxim Naumov said he felt the "presence" of his late mother and father as he made his Winter Olympics debut in the men's singles competition on Tuesday, one year after losing both parents in a tragic plane crash.
Naumov is the son of 1994 World Figure Skating Champions Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, who were among the 67 people killed in January 2025 when a commercial jet collided mid-air with an Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River in the Washington, D.C., area.
The commercial flight was carrying several young skaters, their parents and their coaches, who were all returning from a national figure skating development camp in Wichita, Kansas.
Skating inside the Milano Ice Skating Arena on Tuesday, Naumov delivered a moving performance he said was guided by his parents.
"It felt like I was guided," he told Olympics.com. "That overall calmness and stillness that I had, it was unlike anything I felt before. I leaned into it, I leaned more and more. I felt like I was guided, like a hand on my back pushing me forward… just moving me around from element to element."
Referring to his late parents, he said, "I felt it, felt their presence."
"I just really hope I make them proud," he added. "They're my superheroes, they're my role models, my biggest support system, and I just wanted to make them feel proud here."
Naumov earned a spot on the U.S. men's Olympic team alongside Ilia Malinin and Andrew Torgashev, with Jason Brown, Tomoki Hiwatashi and Jacob Sanchez named as alternates.
As he waited for his scores in the kiss-and-cry area on Tuesday, Naumov held up a photo of him and his parents. His performance ultimately earned him a score of 85.65, a season best.
Team USA took home the gold medal in the 2026 figure skating team event earlier in the week, beating Team Japan by a single point on Sunday.
