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US Figure Skating has confirmed the 16 athletes who will represent Team USA at the Milan-Cortina Games next month in Italy, including Maxim Naumov, who fulfilled the hopes of his late parents by making the Olympic team.
Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, who were world champions in pairs figure skating in 1994, became coaches at the Skating Club of Boston. Last January, they were returning from Wichita, Kansas, host of the 2025 US championships, along with 26 others connected to figure skating, when their plane collided with a military helicopter, killing everyone on board both aircraft.
Maxim Naumov said he talked with his parents regularly about following in their footsteps to become an Olympian.
“I would not be sitting here without the unimaginable work effort and love from my parents,” Naumov said on Sunday. “It means absolutely everything to me, fulfilling the dream that we collectively had as a family since I first was on the ice at five years old. So it means absolutely everything. And I know they’re looking down, smiling and proud.”
He will compete in men’s singles with world champion Ilia Malinin, fresh off his fourth straight national title. Malinin will be the prohibitive favorite to follow in the footsteps of Nathan Chen by delivering another men’s gold medal for the American squad when he steps on the ice at the Milano Ice Skating Arena.
Ice dance duo Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who won their record-setting seventh US title on Saturday night, also will be among the Olympic favorites, as will world champion Alysa Liu and women’s teammate Amber Glenn, who won her third consecutive national title at the weekend.
“I’m just so excited for the Olympic spirit, the Olympic environment,” Malinin said. “Hopefully go for that Olympic gold.”
Malinin will be joined on the men’s side by Andrew Torgashev, the all-or-nothing 24-year-old from Coral Springs, Florida, and Naumov.
Chock and Bates helped the Americans win team gold at the Beijing Games four years ago, but they finished fourth in the ice dance competition. They have hardly finished anywhere but first in the years since, winning three consecutive world championships and the gold medal at three straight Grand Prix Finals.
US silver medalists Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik also made the dance team, as did the Canadian-born Christina Carreira, who became eligible for the Olympics in November when her American citizenship came through, and Anthony Ponomarenko.
Liu was picked for her second Olympic team after briefly retiring following the Beijing Games. She had been burned out by years of practice and competing, but stepping away seemed to rejuvenate the 20-year-old, and she returned to win the first world title by an American since Kimmie Meissner stood atop the podium two decades ago.
Now, the avant-garde Liu will be trying to help Team USA win their first women’s medal since Sasha Cohen in Turin in 2006, and the first gold medal since Sarah Hughes triumphed four years earlier at the Salt Lake City Games.
Liu’s biggest competition, besides a powerful Japanese contingent, could come from her own teammates: Glenn, a first-time Olympian, has been nearly unbeatable the past two years, while 18-year-old Isabeau Levito is a former world silver medalist.
“This was my goal and my dream and it just feels so special that it came true,” said Levito, whose mother is originally from Milan.
The two pairs spots went to Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea, the US silver medalists, and the team of Emily Chan and Spencer Howe.
The top American pairs team, two-time reigning US champions Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov, were hoping that the Finnish-born Efimova would get her citizenship approved in time to compete in Italy. But despite efforts by the Skating Club of Boston, where they train, and the help of their US senators, she did not receive her passport by the selection deadline.
“The importance and magnitude of selecting an Olympic team is one of the most important milestones in an athlete’s life,” US Figure Skating CEO Matt Farrell said, “and it has such an impact, and while there are sometimes rules, there is also a human element to this that we really have to take into account as we make decisions and what’s best going forward from a selection process. Sometimes these aren’t easy, and this is not the fun part.”
