Alexei Krasnozhon

Alexei Dmitriyevich Krasnozhon (Алексей Дмитриевич Красножон; born April 11, 2000) is a Russian-American former competitive figure skater.

Krasnozhon was born on April 11, 2000, in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

His mother, Natalia, is an endocrinologist and his father, Dmitri, is an oncologist.

He has two younger sisters, named Dana and Sofia.

Krasnozhon skated for Russia earlier in his career, making his last international appearance in December 2013.

He competed for Russia at the Volvo Open Cup in January 2013, winning gold on the advanced novice level, and placed twelfth at the 2013 Russian Junior Championships.

Krasnozhon won the junior silver medal at the Denkova-Staviski Cup in December 2013.

He missed much of the season due to a back injury.

In 2014, Krasnozhon moved to Dallas, Texas.

While training in Texas, he lived with his coaches, Peter and Darlene Cain, for five years.

He later moved to live on his own in Plano, where his parents often visited.

After relocating with coaches Olga Ganicheva and Alexei Letov to Boston, Kranoszhon roomed with fellow skaters Jimmy Ma and Misha Mitrofanov in Norwood.

In March 2014, Krasnozhon announced that he planned to compete for the United States and would be coached by Peter Cain and Darlene Cain in Euless, Texas.

He qualified for the 2015 US Championships on the junior level and won the pewter medal.

On July 1, 2015, the Russian Figure Skating Federation released Krasnozhon so that he could compete internationally for the United States.

While training in Moscow, Krasnozhon performed full run-throughs of his programs about once a week, but he began doing them daily after moving to Texas.

Making his Junior Grand Prix (JGP) debut, Krasnozhon won the bronze medal in August 2015 in Riga, Latvia.

He then placed fifth in Torun, Poland.

After receiving the junior gold medal at the Midwestern Sectionals, he closed his season by winning the junior bronze medal at the 2016 U.S. Championships, finishing behind Tomoki Hiwatashi and Kevin Shum.

Competing in the 2016 JGP series, Krasnozhon won silver in Ostrava, Czech Republic, and then gold in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

He qualified to the Junior Grand Prix Final in Marseille, France, where he finished fifth.

Competing for the United States, he is the 2017 CS Tallinn Trophy silver medalist, 2017 Junior Grand Prix Final champion, and 2017 U.S. national junior champion.

At the 2017 U.S. Championships, he won the junior men's title.

He qualified to the free skate at the 2017 World Junior Championships in Taipei, Taiwan.

Making his senior international debut, Krasnozhon placed fourth at the Philadelphia Summer International in early August 2017.

Competing in the Junior Grand Prix series, Krasnozhon won gold medals in Brisbane, Australia, and Zagreb, Croatia, which qualified him for the Final for a second time.

Competing at his first Challenger event, and he won a silver medal at the 2017 CS Tallinn Trophy.

Krasnozhon then won gold at the Junior Grand Prix Final in Nagoya, Japan.

He outscored the silver medalist, Camden Pulkinen, by more than 19 points and set a new personal best total score, 236.35 points, at the competition.

In March 2018, Krasnozhon said that he planned to apply for U.S. citizenship and applied as an alien of extraordinary ability after turning 18.

Krasnozhon competed in the senior ranks at the 2018 U.S. Championships, placing eighth in the short program, thirteenth in the free skate, and tenth overall.

In March, he placed first in the short program at the 2018 World Junior Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria.

He received his green card in September 2020.

Krasnozhon retired prior to the 2021–22 season, as he noted he would have been unable to gain citizenship in time for the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Although he originally planned to retire after the Olympics in January 2022, he acknowledged that it would have been difficult for him to make the team regardless of his citizenship and chose to retire earlier and instead pursue a college degree.

While skating, Krasnozhon enrolled in a private online high school and expressed interest in a business degree from Georgetown University or Southern Methodist University.

In his May 2021 retirement announcement, he shared that he would be attending Texas Christian University's John V. Roach Honors College.

Krasnozhon has expressed interest in becoming an immigration lawyer, as he was thankful for the opportunities afforded to him and his family by moving to the United States.

Krasnozhon began skating as a five-year-old.

At age seven, he became a student of Alexei Mishin, as well as his wife Tatiana Mishina and their assistant coach Oleg Tataurov.