Figure skater Maxim Naumov made the United State’s Winter Olympics team nearly a year after his parents were killed in the 2025 crash between an American Airlines flight and an Army Black Hawk helicopter in the skies above Washington D.C.
The 24-year-old clinched his spot on the team Sunday.
“Dream come true ✨ Maxim Naumov is headed to his first Winter Olympics,” read a social media post Sunday from the official Team USA account.
His parents, former 1994 World Figure Skating Pairs Champions Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova — who moved to the U.S. in 1998 to coach at the Skating Club of Boston — were among the 67 people killed in the crash that plunged the wreckage into the Potomac River. Another 26 athletes, coaches or parents connected to U.S. figure skating and returning from a development training camp for younger skaters in Wichita, Kan., were killed.
This month during the U.S. Figure Skating Championships Naumov held up a photo of himself with his Russian parents while waiting for his scores after the short program. Naumov finished third, behind U.S. champion Ilia Malinin and runner-up Andrew Torgashev.
“My parents, what we talked about and how much we discussed this through my entire life, and how much it means to us, and how much the Olympics is part of our family,” Naumov said in a statement. “I thought of them immediately. I wish they could be here to experience it with me, but I do feel their presence and they are with me.”
Naumov was the U.S. junior champion in 2020 and is a three-time pewter medalist (4th place) at major U.S. competitions.
The Winter Olympics in Milan begin Feb. 6.
