Figure Skater Maxim Naumov Lands Dream Role on Olympic Team & Fulfills Late Parents' Legacy

It’s a beautiful, bittersweet day for figure skater Maxim Naumov. His lifelong dream to become a U.S. Olympic skater has come true—one year after the death of his figure-skating parents.

Naumov was named part of the Winter Olympics team on Jan. 10, fulfilling the legacy of parents Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov’s—former Olympians who died on the American Airlines plane that collided with a Black Hawk helicopter near Washington D.C. over the Potomac River almost a year ago, on Jan. 29. The accident killed 67 people, including 28 members of the figure skating community.

It’s why the 24-year-old skater honored their memory after competing in the U.S. National Championships on Sunday by holding and kissing a photo of himself as a child with his parents, who moved to the U.S. from Russia in 1998 to coach at the Skating Club of Boston. 

“I was telling them that we did it, and we did it together,” Naumov told Hoda Kotb in an interview with TODAY on Jan. 12. “I would not be here without them in any capacity.”

On Sunday, Naumov was presented with a Team USA jacket, where he was shown a childhood video of himself saying it was his “dream” to go to the Olympics. “Well, that dream has come true,” an NBC Sports host told Naumov, per People. “You’re headed to the Olympics!”

At the event, Namov said that “every day, year after year” he and his parents “talked about the Olympics.”

“It means so much in our family, and it’s what I’ve been thinking about since I’ve been 5 years old, before I even knew how to think or what to think,” he continued. “So, I can’t even say in words how much this means to me.”

Naumov also reflected on what his parents, who were 1994 World Figure Skating pairs champions, would say to him now: “They’d say, ‘We’re proud of you, but job’s not finished. We’re just getting started.’”

Before you go, check out these celebrity kids who attended the Olympics.