Baby Swan Graduates: Class of 2017

It's time for the usually sad and only semi-relevant post-Olympic year, but we still have 4 new brave youngsters, (hopefully) ready to try to defy the odds of surviving Russian gymnastics. They have already proved to be extremely resilient (or lucky) by making it into senior level, so let's hope that they have a few good (dare I say, maybe even a tiny bit successful) years left.

You're probably already familiar with them, but here are the former Baby Swans who graduated into senior ranks at the start of this year: Elena Eremina, Anastasia Ilyankova, Ulyana Perebinosova and Elizaveta Kochetkova.

Don't they all look young and innocent? Enjoy it while it lasts. They'll soon make you crazy in one way or another, probably either by being a talented headcase, injured headcase or someone who can actually hit but is always injured.

This post is going to be divided into separate parts in case I get overly excited and poetic. Part 1 will be up soon, and it's going to focus on Lena.