Russia Tests New Faces at Intl Gymnix

International Gymnix runs from March 3-6 and Russia's sent three fresh, but not entirely unexpected, faces to the competition in the form of Uliana Perebinosova, Varvara Zubova, and Valeriia Saifulina. Saifulina (2002) earned an impressive 55.7 in the KMC division of the 2015 Junior Championships, so with several juniors moving up to senior rank, it's time to give her a shot. Admittedly, then and now, there's nowhere she particularly stands out and like a lot of other juniors, she achieves her best all-around scores by counting no major mistakes and having good-enough execution across each apparatus. This is not at all a bad thing; if anything, I tend to prefer these types of gymnasts because there's a stable foundation upon which they can upgrade confidently. The girls who are strong on two/weak on two or some other variation can be very unpredictable in how they perform AA. Besides, there's plenty of time for Valeriia to develop a pet event or two, and I think her 2015 floor routine indicates her greatest potential lies there, an asset for Russia indeed:

I love her combination dance move, the double L turn to (full?)Y turn. Very cool. And very upgradable for extra CV. Valeriia has some nice skills on bars (she's already conquered inbars) but her swing when she goes up to the high bar is always baaaaaad, and the Gymnix training video revealed she's got problems with the flow of the routine in general. She vaults a very clean full and shows some nice skills on beam like roundoff + layout. However, long pauses destroy the rhythm of the set, a deduction she risks incurring. I call it the Kyla Ross syndrome- she's not hesitant per se, but I can't help but note how long her set-up takes before she moves. My last complaint, from looking at her training videos, is that her extension needs work, some of those leaps being just barely or not at all at 180°. 

Varvara Zubova (2002) aka Little Shushunova has quite the fan following ever since this video appeared of her delightful fx. She's probably in contention for a berth on the 2016 Euros team so this is just as much a test run as it is an experience building opportunity. My favorite event, besides floor, is beam where she packs in everything but the kitchen sink. And how about that first acro series, the gainer layout to back handspring to layout stepout!!! Varvara is set to arrive a day later than her teammates so she was not at Day 1 training. 

Valeriia, Uliana, Anastasia
Source: Gymnix Facebook

Uliana Perebinosova (2001) comes to Montreal with notable assignments under her belt including 2015 Top Gym where she took bronze in AA, VT, and FX finals. My favorite thing about this gymnast? That she goes for the unexpected. Take her bars for example; she counts a maloney to stalder half to ezhova combo and on beam she used to compete an illusion turn. My least favorite thing about her? Well, that would have to be her form. It's loose and it makes her beam kinda unattractive to me because she doesn't hold body lines all the way through. Uliana shouldn't be discounted, however, as she has a 5.8 on UB and a good level of difficulty on floor, where she seems abundantly capable of more. This year's Gymnix is well attended so I doubt she will make it into any individual finals, and that speaks to the need for her to upgrade and clean up on execution. She'll need to do that sooner than later as there are strong candidates at home, in addition to her Gymnix teammates, vying for Euros. 

The team is led by Anastasia Iliankova, who's looking to have a better competition than last year's Gymnix when she injured herself. She looks in top form on her best event, UB, and as she'll probably be on the junior team Russia sends to Euros I'll be watching to see if she's added anything to her program. She's a terrific competitor but her track record unfortunately shows she tends to let the simplest mistakes undo her entirely on BB and FX.  If she can learn to adjust her errors without coming undone, she could challenge for AA medals this year. As it is, she is the most seasoned girl on this team, so I hope we can see solid performances from her. 

Competition for the Russians starts on March 5th with TF, AA, and EF qualifications.