MILAN — Team USA didn’t just have Ilia Malinin in men’s singles figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics. Two other Americans shined in their Winter Olympics debuts.
Maxim Naumov and Andrew Torgashev competed in Milano Cortina and stood out in a crowded field to make it a successful outing for the U.S.
In the short program, each of them put up season-best performances, with Naumov earning an 85.65 and Torgahsev with an 88.94. They played to their strengths, Naumov connecting with the emotions of his music and Torgashev becoming “a rock star on the stage” of his program.
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Although Torgashev wasn’t as sharp in his free skate, he still put up a strong program in his last performance. It looked like trouble early when he stumbled on a quad toeloop, but he executed everything that followed, gracefully sliding across the ice in several sequences.
The porgram netted Torgashev a season-best score of 170.12, bringing his total to 259.06. A tremendous outing, but it put him at fifth place at the time of his performance, putting him in danger of not finishing in the top 10.
It wasn’t as strong of an outing for Naumov, however. He had two falls in early in his program, resulting in deductions, and had some stumbles. He went on to score a 137.71, making his combined total 223.36. It kept him out of the top 10 of the standings. He entered the free skate in 11th place.
Naumov was a sentimental favorite for figure skating fans, as he fulfilled the Olympic dream of his parents, who were among the 67 people killed in the midair collision between American Airlines Flight 5342 and an Army helicopter near Washington, DC in January 2025, which devastated the figure skating community. He honored his parents in the short program by holding up a photo of them in the Kiss-and-Cry, and he did it again while awaiting the scores of his free skate.
Torgashev capped off what was a remarkable run, recovering from a tough stretch of the season during which the Winter Olympics didn’t seem like a reality. But it all came together during U.S. nationals in January, where his epic free skate paved the way for him to make the Olympic roster, and he proved his worth on the global stage.
