MILAN — After Maxim Naumov finished in fourth place at the 2025 U.S. figure skating championships for the third straight year, his father, Vadim, wanted to game plan.
Vadim and and Maxim's mother, Evgenia Shishkova, were two-time Olympic pair skaters for Russia, and they knew Maxim's upcoming year was critical with the 2026 Winter Olympics on the horizon.
The patriarch laid out the plan for the rest of the season. It was time to change the mindset and approach. Get more consistent and be resilient. He detailed what they were going to do, how they would do it and when it would happen. It was an emotional, productive 45-minute conversation.
It ended up being one of the last conversations they had together.
A few days later, Vadim and Shishkova were among the 67 people killed in the midair collision between American Airlines Flight 5342 and an Army helicopter near Washington, D.C. They were among the 28 figure skating coaches, young athletes and parents who were returning from a development camp. An unimaginable tragedy, and Naumov didn’t know if he could skate anymore.
