Vladimir and Elena Petrenko saw Max Naumov the day he was born at Hartford Hospital.
Sunday, they got to watch as he was named to the U.S. Olympic figure skating team in St. Louis.
The Petrenkos made it back home to Simsbury around midnight Tuesday after an emotional weekend. But they weren’t there long. After checking in with family and briefly celebrating their 31st wedding anniversary, they were heading back to Norwood, Mass. on Wednesday to continue coaching Naumov, who will compete in the Winter Olympics, which begin Feb. 6 in Italy.
Max’s parents, Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, were close friends of the Petrenkos and were long-time coaches at the International Skating Center of Connecticut in Simsbury before they moved to Boston in 2017. On Jan. 29, 2025, Naumov and Shishkova were among 67 people, including more than two dozen figure skaters and their parents and coaches returning from the U.S. Figure Skating championships in Wichita, Kansas who died in a plane crash in Washington, D.C.
Saturday, all the Petrenkos – Vladimir and Elena and their sons Daniel and Anton – were in St. Louis, along with others close to Max, at the national championships when Max finished third and the next day, when he was named to the Olympic team. Vladimir and Elena have coached Max since last July; Daniel and Anton have been Max’s friends since childhood.
And now they’re all going to the Olympics – a dream that Naumov and Shishkova, who were Olympians themselves – always had for their son.
The moment is bittersweet for the Petrenkos, who miss their friends dearly.
“We just wish they could see,” Elena said. “We wish we could say, ‘Here. Go to the Olympics. We helped you out, but you guys go.’
“The (people in the U.S. skating) federation said, ‘We know your joy is filled with grief.’ They said, ‘Enjoy the moment.’ But it’s a very tough price.”
After his parents died, Max threw himself into work, coaching their skaters at the Skating Club of Boston in Norwood, Mass. He was working from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., Vladimir said, when he talked to Vladimir in March about helping him coach.
Vladimir, who coaches at the Simsbury rink, immediately said he would help and drove to Norwood.
“I’d go there Mondays through Fridays,” Vladimir said. “Saturday and Sunday, I was here (in Simsbury). Since then, it’s always like that.”
Then Max asked Vladimir to coach him in July to prepare for the national championships and attempt to qualify for the U.S. Olympic team. Elena and Vladimir are a team; they rented an apartment in the area where they spent the week, and they would return to Connecticut on the weekends. Daniel, who is now the director of figure skating at the Simsbury rink, took over Vladimir’s lessons in Simsbury.
“I’m a coach and a choreographer and everything else,” Elena said. “It’s not only about the technique – you need to know your athlete, how the day went before, how to get his head fixed if something’s bothering him…
“What to say, how to say it,” Vladimir said. “How to react with what is going on.”
“It’s love, it’s patience,” Elena said. “We want him to succeed. We want him to be happy. In this situation, knowing what he – what all of us – went through … we just had to become someone between family and coaches.”
“There’s no guidance, how to do this,” Vladimir said.
“Everybody was asking, how did you do this in four months?” Elena said. “We call it the secret recipe.”
She laughed.
“It’s been a long journey for us. It’s not only from the end of July. It’s from the Day One when we came here to the United States.”
When they first came to Simsbury
Vladimir and Elena arrived in the U.S. from Ukraine in 1994. Vladimir was an Olympic alternate in 1992, the year his brother Viktor won the gold medal in France. They were all invited over by Bob Young, who owned the rink in Simsbury.
Naumov and Shishkova, Olympic pairs skaters who were world champions, came to the rink in 1998.
Daniel grew up with Max, who is three years younger, and Daniel’s younger brother Anton at the rink where their parents coached.
“The three of them are inseparable to this day,” Elena said. “When (the plane crash) happened, Max was here every weekend. This is where the comfort zone is. This is where they grew up.”
After the crash, 150 people attended a tribute to the coaches and skaters at the Simsbury rink.
Max attended elementary and middle school in Simsbury and spent his freshman year at Simsbury High before he moved to an online school to accommodate his skating schedule while his parents coached him.
He had finished fourth in the nationals last year and come home before his parents.
When Max came back to Simsbury for a benefit skating show last May, he talked to The Courant, and said he hadn’t skated much since last January.
“With so much change happening, doing something that gives me a sense of normalcy, something I feel comfortable with, has been just a place where I can breathe, take a step back from what’s going on and kind of immerse myself in the music and the movement,” he said. “It really helps me get through some difficult times that I have.”
But training for an Olympic berth was going to be even harder.
“When he started practicing, it was a little bumpy road,” Vladimir said.
Sometimes, Elena said, it was hard for herself and her husband not to show their emotions when they were coaching Max.
“We’re still also in that grief,” she said.
But they all made it and when she knew Max had finished third at the nationals, Elena cried and cried. Even the more stoic Vladimir, who was in the “kiss and cry” area with Max, got emotional.
“He deserves it because he works so hard and he can do it,” Elena said. “I was so excited; finally he was able to show what he’s capable of.”
But first they will have to get past Jan. 29, the anniversary of the plane crash.
“This is going to be very emotional for all of us,” Elena said. “It’s going to be tough. It’s going to be tough on Max. But he’s very resilient. He has us.
“Sometimes we have to hug, sometimes we have to cry. We are always going to be around– on the ice, off the ice. We want him to go to college. It’s not only about skating. That’s probably the most important thing for us. If you’re a strong person, you can achieve a lot.”