Alexei Krasnozhon: The task is to prepare for the US Nationals

Short interview with Alexei Krasnozhon after Nebelhorn Trophy 2018.

– I think, in general my performance was ok, after all this is my first competition after the Junior Worlds. Of course, it’s hard, I started training just a month ago, barely restored the jumps. Therefore, I can say that I’m satisfied, I didn’t come here for scores, but just to go on the ice and prove to myself that I can fight.

This season Marina Zueva did the free program for you, why did you decide to go back to the last year’s program?

– I worked with Marina when I thought that the leg had already healed, it was back in May. Then it turned out that I didn’t fully recover. Marina did a very strong program, you can’t skate such program like I skated here. In such a program every accent is important, every movement should be polished. But there were not enough time.

At the World Junior Championships in Sofia you were seriously injured, how long did it take to recover? When did you start training?

– It took a lot of time, I didn’t skate almost four months. In June, I had physical therapy. I’m on the ice since the beginning of August, August 3 I had the first training on the ice. I went to the ice and couldn’t do even double jumps, but now I restore triple axel, in trainings we work on quads – salchow, toe loop, loop.

You got injured on the quad salchow, don’t you have a psychological barrier now?

– Absolutely no. It’s scary … scary to overtrain again. You go to the ice and think – now I’ll fly. Then you get tired, you think – well, I’m tired I can get injured. And every day you think about it. Every day you go to the ice, something moves you. You think – today I will do more.

So we started – I go to the jump, for example, triple lutz. Popped it once, twice, three times, just couldn’t do it. Then suddenly I did. Then I think – if I make a mistake, my leg will hurt, as a result, again popped two jumps. That’s how recovery went.

This offseason, you changed the coach, what influenced this decision, what changed in the training process?

– First of all, I want to say that Peter and Darlene Cain are very talented coaches, they taught me a lot, brought me to the level of the Junior World Championships, Junior Grand Prix Final. I really liked working with them, but at some point I realized that I need something else, that I need jumps. Still, I was grown up on the Russian technique, so I went to the Russian coaches – Alexei and Olga Letov.

This is your first senior season. What are your goals?

– For the first part of the season my goals are to recover, build up a program, improve the elements, restore the quad. A month later I’m going to the Grand Prix in Finland, so I set a goal to restore the quadruple salchow in the next two weeks. Now I jump it with underrotation, but at the Grand Prix I want to jump it clean in the short program. It’s hard to say about the free program – we will start with salchow, then we will try two quadruples. Let’s see how it goes. In general, the task is to prepare for the US Nationals, this is our most serious competitions. There it will be possible to try two quadruple jumps in the short program, three or four in the free. But, again, it’s necessary to prepare gradually, in order not to get injured again.

And the last question – you are from St. Petersburg, how often does it happen to be in your native city, do you visit the Academy?

– The last time I was in St. Petersburg in April, just after the Junior Worlds. Of course I visit the Academy, I have a lot of friends there – Dima Aliev, girls from synchro skating, with whom we skated in one group coached by Alexei Mishin. Sasha Petrov, Makar Ignatov and me there were three boys in our group. Some of the guys I competed with in my childhood have already finished, someone is coaching, someone is doing something else.

by Ludmila Orlova for zubakovsport.com

Related topics: Alexei Krasnozhon, interview, Nebelhorn Trophy