How American figure-skater overcame parents’ death in a plane crash last year to record season’s best score

Dubai: In what was one of the worst sporting disasters last year, Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, figure skating world pairs champions in 1994 and two-time Olympians from Russia, tragically died on January 29 when the American Eagle flight they were on collided with a US Army helicopter near Washington DC, killing all 67 people aboard both aircraft.

Evgenia and Vadim were among 28 members of the US figure skating community, who were returning from the national championships. They had moved to the US from Russia in 1998 after getting married in 1995. Their son Maxim Naumov was also present for the US Championships, where he finished fourth. However, he flew home on a different flight.

Best score

On Tuesday at the Winter Olympics, Maxim hit all his elements perfectly to Chopin’s haunting, melancholic “Nocturne No. 20” to earn his season’s best score of 85.65 points and a place in Friday’s free skating final.

“Mom and Dad this is for you,” flashed up on the screen at the Milano Ice Skating Arena just before the 24-year-old took to the Olympic ice for the first time.

“From the time that my name was announced in the warm-up to right before I went out for my skate, I felt it. The energy. The roar. It’s like a buzz in your body,” he said.

“I couldn’t help but just embrace it. Embrace that love.”

It was a bittersweet moment for Maxim who qualified for this first Olympics after finishing third at the US nationals last month.

“I feel like I was just guided today by them,” he told journalists afterwards of his parents.

“Feeling their presence. With every glide and step that I made on the ice.

“I couldn’t help but feel their support. Almost like a chess piece on a chess board. From one element to another.”

Emotional moment

With tears in his eyes, he finished his routine on his knees, soaking in the cheers of the crowd.

“I didn’t know if I was going to cry, smile, or laugh,” he said.

“All I could do was just look up and say, ‘Look what we just did’. I said it in English and Russian.”

After his performance, he held up a photo of himself holding his parents’ hands on the first occasion they took him to the ice, aged three.

“I carry them so I never ever forget about it,” he explained.

“And they’re right here. It’s literally here on my chest, on my heart.

“I wanted them to sit in the ‘kiss and cry’ with me and experience the moment, to look up at the scores and just live in this moment.

“They deserve to be sat right next to me. Like they always have been.

“I just wanted to go out there. And just get my heart out. Leave everything out there. Have no regrets at all.

“And to be able to do it here, on this stage, today and now. I couldn’t be more proud of myself and my team.”

Come Friday, Maxim will be hoping to emulate his parents with a medal at the Olympics.