Baby Swan Graduates: Ulyana Perebinosova

Ulya is originally from Kuznetsk, but she trains in Moscow and is coached by Marina Ulyankina, also the coach/former coach of gymnasts like Maria Paseka, Seda Tutkhalyan and Alla Sosnitskaya. She represents the Central Federal Okrug, even though neither Moscow nor Kuznetsk is a part of it, but the Russian teams rarely follow any logic anyway. She made a steady rise through the junior ranks and by 2016, she was expected to be one of the team's top senior all arounders in 2017. So naturally she disappeared completely and her status now is unknown. Before her untimely disappearance, she won gold together with her team at the Junior European Championships, and also took individual silver on bars and bronze on floor. At the Russian Nationals in 2016, she won gold on vault, silver on all around and beam, and bronze on bars.

She has many attributes in common with other Ulyankina's gymnasts and like them, she's not the typical Russian Swan. She isn't nearly as messy as them and she usually has nice, clean lines, but she doesn't have the elegance or finesse of some of her teammates, and hasn't shown much character yet. She's an all arounder with fairly equal ability on 3 pieces. She's best on bars, very promising on floor with nice dance and high, clean tumbling, and one of the few Russians with a DTY on vault, but it's still very inconsistent. Her beam is...ummm...special. Think of junior Maria Paseka.

She's an intense competitor who doesn't have many smiles for the cameras. This naturally means, that her Bitchface is strong. I still haven't decided how much I like her. I definitely don't hate her, but I'm not crazy about her either. It looks like I don't even have to decide for now, because as I said, she has been MIA since last spring. That means she probably had some bigger injury that took her out of training and back to her home gym, or she randomly decided to quit. It remains to be seen if she's going to come back, or if she's one of the many, many Russian juniors who quietly retire before even reaching senior.

VAULT:

She has a DTY, but it's a bit scary looking, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if she had a knee injury... I couldn't find better footage of her vaulting if my life depended on it, sorry. It looks like she's relatively clean in the air, but she twists too early and pikes heavily on landing, doesn't quite get the second twist around.

UNEVEN BARS:

She's decent on bars and has potential, even though she doesn't have my beloved Russian Swing. She still has naturally nice lines and her swing has improved a lot last year (she used to really muscle her routine), and her difficulty is very good for a junior all arounder. She's very messy though, with leg separations and hurried elements and handstands, and her routine composition is very clunky after the great first combination. All of that can be fixed though, hopefully. She has occasional trouble with her dismount, it's always very close to the bar.

BALANCE BEAM:

Watching her on balance beam is nerve wracking, even more than usual. Her wolf turn is terrible even by wolf turn standards and even though she made a lot of progress last year, it's still not her apparatus. She actually moves well when she's on and her long, straight legs make everything they can to make her look good (although her feet negate much of it), but when she's off, she's really, really off. The video quality is terrible, but trust me, this is the best routine she has ever done. It even cuts out her wolf turn.

FLOOR EXERCISE:

This is her best apparatus, at least in my opinion. Her dance is okay, if a bit stiff, they actually put some effort and choreography into this routine (she's no Oksana Omelianchik though) and her tumbling is high and very clean and controlled, which is nice to see for a change. It really leaves a good impression. The problem is her difficulty, which is quite low. She has a lot of potential and Russia desperately needs some floor workers, so hopefully she'll come back.