“My whole life flipped upside down,” Naumov recalled

NEED TO KNOW

• Olympian Maxim Naumov became emotional while discussing the death of his parents on a new episode of Special Forces
• “My whole life flipped upside down,” Naumov said while recalling the phone call after his parents’ plane crashed
• “It never gets easier, unfortunately,” the figure skater said

Olympic figure skater Maxim Naumov became emotional while reflecting on the death of his parents.

During the Thursday, Oct. 8 episode of Special Forces, Naumov, 25, was called in for questioning after he volunteered to fight pro-boxer Alycia Baumgardner. “Nobody raised their hand and I just decided to step up. I’d take the hits so that they didn’t have to,” the skater explained.

Naumov credited his parents, Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, for instilling him with a strong sense of focus. “They raised me to be a champion. I’d give anything to have some more time with them,” he said.

When asked more about his parents, the Olympic skater recalled a moment he shared with them during the 2025 National Championships, the last time he saw them before the plane crash. Through emotional pauses, Naumov shared, “After I finished my competition, I flew back home and…my mom calls me and she says, ‘I just want to make sure you know that we love you and we’re proud of you.’”

Naumov continued, “And as a Soviet Russian family, we never said ‘I love you’ outright like that. And I said, ‘I love you too.’ … The next day, I was supposed to pick them up. I keep texting them … All of a sudden, I get a call.”

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Vadium, 55, and Evgenia, 52, were killed in the American Airlines flight 5342 and U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter crash over Washington, D.C. in January 2025.

While thinking about the plane crash, the skater became choked up, admitting he hasn’t “relived that moment in a while,” and recalling, “Everybody on board was gone, and that was it. That was f—ing it, right there. My whole life flipped upside down.”

Naumov went on to honor his parents as he competed in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, where he faltered during his final program, but said at the time, “I didn’t give up, from the start to the finish. That is something I can be proud of.”

Naumov said on Thursday’s episode of Special Forces that it was “bittersweet” to compete in the Games one year after his parents’ death. “The only thing I wanted was to hug my dad and hug my mom and tell them I made it,” he shared.

After being told by the directing staff that he’s almost too focused in the competition, Naumov said, “It never gets easier, unfortunately,” of his grief. “But instinctively, what I’ve trained my whole life to do, as an athlete, is put my feelings and emotions to the side. But deep down, I am a very emotional person,” he said.

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