Meet the Team: Daria Spiridonova

Daria Spiridonova (Cyrillic: Дарья Спиридонова), affectionately called either Dasha, or Spiridoz, is the third Olympic newbie in the team and one of their two specialists. She was born 1998 in Novocheboksarsk, but moved later to train and compete for Moscow. She's 18 years old, a third year senior and an experienced competitor, having made the Russian team for every major competition ever since she turned senior in 2014. This means also that she's a rarity in the team: no major or minor injuries keeping her from training and competing.

Her junior career was short and modest. She was promising on the uneven bars with her beautiful lines and swing, but had messy execution and didn't shine on any other event. It wasn't until she joined the senior team that she started improving, and fast. First it was bronze on the uneven bars at the 2014 European Championships, and later that year, a bronze at the World Championships. The next year she just kept on improving, becoming both the European Champion and World Champion on the uneven bars. Her other major titles include Worlds team bronze, Europeans team bronze and gold, 2016 Europeans uneven bars silver and several national titles.

The coaches describe Dasha as a hard-working and goal-oriented girl. She is best on the uneven bars, although she still trains and competes every event and has expressed her wish to be an all rounder. She is a perfect example of what is though of as "the Russian look" in gymnastics. She's slight (nicknamed "elf" among her teammates), elegant, has great flexibility, beautiful lines and gorgeous jumps and switch leaps on floor and beam (although her leaps tend to be messy). Unfortunately she lacks the strength and stamina required for difficult tumbling and vaulting, so she doesn't have a high enough difficulty overall to be a serious contender in the all around. Her elegance makes her beautiful to watch on beam, but she's hindered by her inconsistency and low difficulty. This makes uneven bars her only event for Rio.

Like almost every other gymnast, her dream is to go to the Olympics and medal there. Her favorite apparatus has been uneven bars ever since she started gymnastics at the age of 6, but she wants to improve on floor and beam too. Her favorite gymnasts are teammate Aliya Mustafina and Svetlana Khorkina. She was actually one of the stunt doubles for the actress that played Khorkina in a Russian movie. She's also a self-proclaimed daredevil. She enjoys the wind tunnel and wants to try skydiving some day.

Dasha's difficulty scores for Rio:

• VT: 5.0
• UB: 6.7
• BB: 5.8
• FX: 5.7

VAULT: She has a FTY (full twisting yurchenko), easy vault for a senior. We won't see her vaulting in Rio unless a disaster strikes the team.

UNEVEN BARS: This event alone is why she made the team. She's the reigning World Champion (one of 4, 3 of which will compete with her again in Rio) and capable of a huge score for the team and an individual medal. She's absolutely gorgeous to watch and very consistent in big competitions. She has the natural and easy "Russian" swing along with her beautiful lines, great form and near perfect execution. Her routine has a very Russian composition too, it's filled with difficult inbar work and stalder pirouettes connected to shaposh-transitions, and a high piked jaeger. She should get mid-15s for a hit routine.

BALANCE BEAM: Dasha is beautiful to watch on beam when she hits, but her routine is relatively easy and she's inconsistent. If she's going to perform on beam in Rio, it's only going to be in qualifications. She should get low 14s for a hit routine. (I picked this routine even though she fell, because her execution is otherwise at her best.)

FLOOR EXERCISE: Dasha has only competed a few floor routines this year, rather focusing on her better events for the Olympics. Although she has her usual elegance during the choreography and dancing parts, her tumbling is very easy and she hasn't been able to lift her difficulty with turns and connections like her other teammates. This means that her floor isn't competitive for a team final situation. She also struggles with execution on her tumbling and lacks stamina, so she very often falls during her last tumbles. She will do floor only if the team really needs a fourth floor routine for the qualifications and Masha can't do it because of her back. But they're most likely going to go with 3 floor routines. She scores mid 13s for a hit routine.

MEDAL PROSPECTS: TF, UB

She should easily make the uneven bars finals and has a big chance of medaling. While her biggest competitors have been upgrading, she has kept the same routine for years and now has lower difficulty than them. She has kept herself competitive with her impeccable execution, but to win gold, she needs to have a perfect routine. Or the girls with more difficult routines need to make mistakes.