The day I wrote Cha Junhwan's Korea history... "The Tragedy of Losing Parents" Figure Star Makes Touching Olympic Debut "It Was a Stage for Mother and Father."" [Milan Olympics]

*This content was translated by AI.

I kept my promise with my parents who left for heaven. Maxim Naumov (25, USA), who lost his parents and teacher at once in the plane disaster, finished his last Olympic stage with a smile.

Naumov finished the competition with a total score of 223.36 in the men's single free skate at the 2026 Milan/Cortina D'Ampezzo Winter Olympics held at the Ice Skating Arena in Milan, Italy on the 13th (local time).

Although the ranking remained in the top 20 due to technical errors, Naumov received a warm round of applause after the match, giving a bright smile and thank you to the stands.

For Naumov, the Olympics meant more than just competition. According to foreign media reports such as People, Namuoff touched the world by sending a message, "Mom, Dad, this is for you" on the electronic display before the game.

Sitting in the Kiss and Cry zone after finishing her acting, Naumov waited for her score with a childhood photo taken with her parents in her heart. When the score was announced, Naumov kissed his parents' face in the picture and poured out the feelings he had endured.

Naumov lost his parents and coaches Vadim Naumov and Yevgenia Shishikova in a January last year crash involving an airliner over Washington, D.C. The parents are notable for being the winner of the 1994 World Championship pair.

It was a disaster. Naumov's parents were all victims of the accident, in which 67 people including 28 figure skating officials were killed. Immediately after the accident, Naumov was in despair enough to recall, "I wanted to lie in bed and rot," but he stood back on the ice to keep his last promise with his father, who said, "If you change your mindset, you can go to the Olympics."

"I made a mistake, but this Olympics means so much to me in my life," Naumov said after stepping on the Olympic stage. "I'm really proud that I didn't give up from beginning to end."

Regarding the reason why he always carried the picture in his heart, he said, "I wanted my parents to sit with me and watch the score. As always, they deserve to sit next to me," he said.

Meanwhile, Korean figure skating star Cha Jun-hwan also wrote a new history on the same stage. Cha scored 181.20 points in the free skate, including 95.16 points in the technical score (TES), 87.04 points in the art score (PCS), and one deduction. Cha Jun-hwan, who received a total of 273.92 points, combined with his short program score (92.72 points), ranked fourth in the final.

It was very close to the medal ticket. Cha Jun-hwan's score is a record that once again broke the all-time Olympic ranking for Korean men's singles, following 15th place in Pyeongchang 2018 and 5th place in Beijing 2022. The difference was only 0.98 points from Shatoshun (274.90 points in Japan), who won the bronze medal. Cha Jun-hwan got off to a good start with the perfect success of his first task, the quadruple salco, but a mistake in the subsequent quadruple toe loop led to a painful deduction and missed the medal by a hair's breadth. After the game, Cha Jun-hwan said, "I'm satisfied even if it's too bad."

The gold medal was won by Mikhail Cheidorov of Kazakhstan (291.58. Ilia Malinin of the U.S., who was a strong favorite for the championship, ended up in eighth place due to a series of jump mistakes.

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*This content was translated by AI.