Two months after losing both of his parents in the Washington, DC, plane crash, Maxim Naumov delivered a tribute at the world championships gala Sunday, the AP reports. Among the 67 victims killed when an American Airlines flight collided with a military helicopter on Jan. 29 were more than two dozen members of the figure skating community, including Naumov's parents, former world pairs champions Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova. Naumov, 23, is a member of the Skating Club of Boston, which lost multiple members, and when he was introduced Sunday, he was given a long standing ovation, the New York Times reports.
He skated to Mac Miller's "That's on Me," released posthumously after the rapper died of an accidental drug overdose in 2018, and later explained to reporters that he's been connecting with the music. "I feel really deeply and emotionally what he's talking about in those songs," he says, adding that skating has been a comfort for him, helping him continue to connect with his parents. "As soon as I hit the ice, my brain just—I don't know whether it's focus or just calmness or stillness or what, but it feels like I tune everything out. And I'm just talking with them, and they're helping me," he says. "I just have this internal dialogue and I'm just able to almost be calm and just be in my heart. And they're always there, too." (This content was created with the help of AI. Read our AI policy.)
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