Heartbroken US ice skating star pays tear-filled tribute to his parents a year on from their death in plane crash
Tearful figure skater Maxim Naumov honored his late parents as he stepped up his bid to make the US Winter Olympics team on Thursday – one year after they were killed in the Washington DC plane tragedy.
The 24-year-old became visibly emotional after holding up a photo of himself as a boy alongside his parents, Russian Olympic skaters Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, while awaiting his score at the US Figure Skating Championships on Thursday.
Vadim, 55, and Evgenia, 52, were among the 67 people who lost their lives when an American Airlines flight collided with a Black Hawk helicopter midair on January 29.
The pair were travelling back from the US Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas as part of a group of elite figure skaters, parents and coaches when the devastating tragedy occured.
No one survived the collision, which sent both the commercial airliner and Army helicopter plummeting into the frigid Potomac River. It was the deadliest plane crash on American soil in more than two decades.
Maxim Naumov honored his late parents at the US Figure Skating Championships on Thursday
His parents, Russian Olympic skaters Vadim Naumov (right) and Evgenia Shishkova (center), were among the 67 people who lost their lives in last year’s Washington DC plane tragedy
Maxim was not onboard with his parents, meaning he has had to live with the unimaginable pain of losing both his mom and dad over the past year.
And during one of the most crucial moments of his bid to make the US figure skating team for the 2026 Winter Olympics, he made sure they were with him by holding up the precious photo.
The tear-jerking moment ended with Naumov receiving a superb score of 85.72 for his routine in St. Louis, which temporarily put him in first place.
‘This program is very meaningful to me, and I spent so much time in practice connecting with it and evolving it and developing it to be as good as I can possibly make it,’ he told USA Today. ‘To go out there and really share that emotion with everybody has been unreal.’
Naumov also added: ‘Sharing the vulnerability with the audience and me feeling their energy back has been something I remember for the rest of my life.’
He eventually finished in fourth place, one spot off the podium, by the end of the competition on Thursday night, leaving him in a good position with the rest of the weekend still to go. There are three spots on the US men’s national figure skating team.
The 24-year-old skater was overcome with emotion after holding up a photo of his late parents
Naumov kept himself in contention to earn a spot in the US team for the Winter Olympics
Securing a place at the Olympics is one of the last things Naumov spoke with his parents about before last year’s heartbreaking plane crash.
Vadim and Evgenia performed together at the 1992 and 1994 Winter Games and were desperate to see their son following in their footsteps in 2026.
‘It’s the ultimate goal,’ Naumov said Thursday. ‘It’s what my parents and I – one of our last conversations was about exactly that.
‘It would mean the world to me to do that. So that’s what we’re fighting for.’
