Baby Swan Graduates: Valeria Saifulina

Valeria Saifulina (Валерия Сайфулина), or Lera, is from St. Petersburg and coached by the famous Kiryashovs. In case you were wondering, that makes her a teammate of Elena Eremina and Tatiana Nabieva, so she's in good company. She even shares many of the same characteristics of their gymnastics. A famous coach comes with great opportunities in Russia, so her junior career has been busy. Her national medals include 2015 silver in all around and vault, and bronze on floor exercise, 2016 bronze on vault and bars, and 2017 gold on vault. She missed out on the Junior European Championships, but has competed regularly in the smaller competitions, such as Gymnix. Last year she competed at the European Youth Olympic Festival, where she won gold with her team and individual gold on vault. When she's not busy competing and training (and a lot of the times when she is), she makes appearances on the St. Peterburg girls' YouTube channel.

She's a great prospect on vault just for having a messy and inconsistent DTY, but I really enjoy her on floor. As I mentioned before, she shares some similarities in her gymnastics with Lena and Nabs, both in good and bad. They all have great quality of movement, musicality and can execute their choreography really well, but also have similar issues with their technique and get messy at times. Lera is also a great performer and has nice lines (when she's not sloppy), but like most Russians, struggles with consistency.

VAULT:

She's a good vaulter by the current Russian standards. She actually has a DTY, and her FTY is nice and flighty and even her 1.5. looks easy for her. She has her usual form issues on vault too but overall, I wouldn't be surprised if she came out yet again with a decent DTY during nationals.

UNEVEN BARS:

She has a basic set of skills and potential for upgrades (although she hasn't really upgraded these past few years), but her work on bars is very sloppy and labored, I'm not a huge fan of her here. She actually has a decent swing and her nice lines would really be an advantage if she cleaned everything else out. Her form used to be actually better, so the recent degradation could be caused by a growth spurt (she's pretty tall compared to her teammates), I'll give her that.

BALANCE BEAM:

She has plenty of nice moments on beam, notably great natural movement and beautiful lines. Her form is a bit iffy, but not nearly as bad as on bars. Unfortunately she's dreadfully inconsistent and shaky, and her difficulty is still low. I still like this routine, it's actually choreographed pretty well, she definitely has a nice flow and her upgraded front tuck mount is great, even if it makes me scared for her. And look at the height on that dismount.

FLOOR EXERCISE:

Floor is in my opinion definitely her best apparatus (just to be objective, after vault) She has a great routine which she performs extremely well, she has musicality and like on beam, moves fluidly and naturally. All while looking like she's having the time of her life. She's not a bad tumbler either. Her form is questionable as always (the twisting could make your eyes bleed), but she has some height on her passes.