{"id":404179,"date":"2026-01-12T07:28:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T07:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/404179\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T07:28:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T07:28:13","slug":"us-figure-skater-whose-parents-were-killed-in-plane-crash-heads-to-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/404179\/","title":{"rendered":"US figure skater whose parents were killed in plane crash heads to Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GettyGetty Images<\/p>\n

Figure skater Maxim Naumov, whose parents were killed in a plane crash in Washington DC last year, has made the US team for next month’s Winter Olympics.<\/p>\n

Naumov’s dream to make Team USA was one of the last things he spoke about with his parents before they were killed. <\/p>\n

“We did it,” Naumov said when asked what his parents would say if they were watching.<\/p>\n

His parents, Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, were among 67 killed in January 2025 after an American Airlines flight collided with a military helicopter mid-air in Washington DC. They were world champions in pairs figure skating in 1994 and skated for Russia.<\/p>\n

They later moved to the US and coached at the Skating Club of Boston. <\/p>\n

On Saturday, Naumov, 24, placed third behind Ilia Malinin and runner-up Andrew Torgashev at the US Figure Skating Championships in St Louis. <\/p>\n

He will now be one of 16 figure skaters representing the US at the Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina.<\/p>\n

As Naumov was competing this week, he held a photo of himself as a child with his parents. <\/p>\n

“I thought of them immediately,” Naumov said on Sunday, according to US Figure Skating. “I wish they could be here to experience it with me, but I do feel their presence, and they are with me.”<\/p>\n

Last January, his parents were among those killed after an American Airlines plane from Kansas carrying 64 people onboard collided with a military helicopter, manned by three personnel. There were no survivors. <\/p>\n

Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova were on their way back from Wichita, Kansas, which was hosting the 2025 US championships. <\/p>\n

Of those on board the flight, 28 were athletes, coaches, or parents connected to US figure skating.<\/p>\n

The Olympic figure skating competition starts on 6 February.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Images Figure skater Maxim Naumov, whose parents were killed in a plane crash in Washington DC last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-404179","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}