Baby Swan Graduates: Elena Eremina

Lena is a protegée of the one and only Tatiana Nabieva, and the most promising gymnast to come out of St. Petersburg since her. She is from the same gym and coached by the same coaches, Vera and Aleksander Kiryashov/a. She wasn't the most prominent junior of the team and was overshadowed of gymnasts like Melnikova and Simakova for most of her junior career, but she definitely made up for it during her last year as a senior, when she became the 2016 Junior European all around and team champion. She also won bronze on balance beam. Her other titles include 2015 EYOF team gold and vault bronze, and 2016 Russian National Championships balance beam gold, uneven bars and vault silver and all around bronze, and 2015 Nationals vault gold, balance beam silver and uneven bars bronze.

I took me quite some time to fall in love with Lena, but this year she definitely got me good. In good and bad, her gymnastics reminds me a lot of Tanya. They share a lot of the same skills and the same messy, but strangely fluent and occasionally even elegant execution. And while Lena's presence and character doesn't quite compare to Nabs (how could anything compare to her, really), she has that something, that makes me want to watch her.

She has been steadily improving these past few years instead of stagnating, which is a good sign (duh). She showed quite a few upgrades at the 2016 Voronin Cup, so hopefully she's going to be able to make the transition into senior gymnastics, that's where most of the young Russian juniors fail. That or 100 injuries leading up to early retirement. I don't think Lena has had any serious injuries, but she hasn't been immune. She's also rather dainty with a heavier torso and seemingly little muscle on her legs, so I'm curious (aka worried) to see how puberty will affect her gymnastics. She unfortunately looks like the type to be very injury prone, but time will tell.

She's a rather balanced all arounder, but like most Russian juniors, excels on balance beam. She's a better vaulter and tumbler than most Russian juniors, but messy and inconsistent in competition on these pieces. Her weakness is uneven bars, but only compared to the rest of her team, most of whom happen to be world class. The struggles of being Russian, eh?

VAULT:

She has been competing a DTY this year and can (somewhat) land it, but her block is questionable, it's underrotated and her form comes apart in the air. Her FTY is solid (as it should be at this point...), and she has competed an inconsistent and often quite tucked 1.5 this year. 

UNEVEN BARS:

She doesn't have my beloved "Russian Swing", but she has good basics and all the "compulsory" Russian skills on the bars, she just hasn't quite yet put it all together. She has upgraded A LOT last year on bars, so she's had many, many different routines, often testing out various skills and compositions. Hopefully they settle on one routine next year, so she can get comfortable with it and focus on execution. As I said, she has good basics and is usually a reliable performer, but she struggles with leg separation on transitions and occasionally loose back.

The first routine is her pre-upgrade one. As you can see, her execution is actually pretty decent. The second routine has her new skills, but is very, very messy.

BALANCE BEAM:

Balance beam has been her best piece during her junior years, but her difficulty is still very low. She has upgrades coming though. But this is where her natural grace comes through, she has nice quality of movement and just flows through her routines with a pleasing rhythm without any pauses before elements, which makes her lovely to watch, but again, she tends to be sloppy. It's like her knees are always a tiny bit bent and her body positions aren't as precise as they could be.

FLOOR EXERCISE:

If her natural grace shows on balance beam, on floor she's stunning. They way she moves is captivating to watch and her choreography and music last year really emphasized her strengths and musicality. It didn't hurt that her routine really reminded me of 2010 Aliya. As I said, she's a better tumbler than most Russians, but still weak by international standards. She also tends to land all over the place, just like our dear Seda. This is definitely one of her better efforts when it comes to landings.