Skater Who Lost Parents in Crash Makes Olympics

Maxim Naumov will head to his first Olympics less than a year after losing both of his parents—who doubled as his coaches—in a plane crash over Washington, DC. On Sunday, US Figure Skating named the 24-year-old to the three-man team for the 2026 Milan Games, alongside Ilia Malinin and Andrew Torgashev, reports People. Naumov is the son of 1994 world pairs champions Evgenia "Zhenya" Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who died on Jan. 29 of last year when an American Airlines flight collided with a US Army Black Hawk helicopter. The crash killed 67 people, including 28 members of the skating community.

"We did it," Naumov said when asked what his parents would have said, per the BBC. "Every day, year after year, we talked about the Olympics," he added. "It means so much in our family, and it's what I've been thinking about since I'm 5 years old. … So I can't say into words how much this means to me." The selection came three days after an emotional short program, where Naumov broke down as his scores came up and held a photo of himself at age 3 with his parents. The full 16-member team—including the ice-dancing duo of Madison Chock and Evan Bates—is one of the strongest ever for USA, notes the AP, which has the details.