MILAN — Maxim Naumov got on his knees after completing his routine in the men’s single figure skating short program Tuesday night, looked above, and said, “Look what we just did.”
The 24-year-old was speaking with his parents, who died in the plane crash a little more than a year ago outside Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people. Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, former world champion pairs skaters, were among a group of 28 U.S. Figure Skating athletes, coaches and family members coming back that day from a development camp in Wichita, Kansas.
Naumov posted a qualifying score of 85.65, a result that had most of the Milano Figure Skating Arena standing and applauding. His American teammate, Andrew Torgashev, finished with a score of 88.94 while gold medal contender Ilia Malinin took top honors with a 108.16.
Naumov, of Simsbury, Connecticut, held up a childhood photograph of himself with his parents on the stage as his score was read aloud. He beamed, knowing the result was expected to be enough to continue competing towards a medal.
Naumov told NBC News that his debut on Tuesday was a moment he and his parents had spent years working towards.
“I can’t say I wasn’t a little bit nervous but I felt so calm and so confident and was just really taking my time on everything,” he told NBC News. “I felt like I was being guided like a chess piece on a chessboard. As I was going into one element and another, I didn’t have any fear in my mind — just confidence and ready to go.”
Inside Naumov’s white Team USA jacket, he had a quote from his father: “Expect the unexpected.”
“This is my dad’s favorite quote,” Naumov said. “He kept saying to me, always, at every competition, at every hard turn, there’s always going to be things that are thrown at you in life. However big, however small, you gotta expect the unexpected and continue to move forward no matter what. And that’s exactly what we did the entire season — my entire 19 years of skating, all to this moment.”
Torgashev, of Coral Springs, Florida, impressed with one of the top scores of the night. He landed a quad toeloop, a combination triple flip and triple toeloop, as well as a triple axel.
He said he fought nerves before performing his routine.
"I was shaking," Torgashev said after. "I was like, 'Why did I wish this for myself?' But once I got out there, the training just took over. I have so much muscle memory with this program and with these elements that no matter how much I doubt myself, I'll always pull through."
Malinin, as expected, stole the show. Three days ago he finished second in the short program as part of the team event behind Japanese skater Yuma Kagiyama. On Tuesday he got revenge by flipping the top two spots in the standings.
The Virginia native posted the highest score of the day after a routine that included a back flip — a move previously banded for nearly 50 years.
He said he needed to "calm it down a little bit" compared to his performance in the team event.
"I just decided to take it nice and calm and relaxed and let this thing play out," he said.
Asked about his teammate Naumov's performance, someone he has known since childhood, Malinin said he was "so proud of him."
"The strength and the bravery and honestly everything he has is just so heartwarming for me," Malinin said. "I could not imagine myself in the situation but I'm so happy for him that he went out there and did as much as he can.
