Baby Swan Graduates: Varvara Zubova

Varvara Zubova (Варвара Зубова), Varya, or ZubZub is from Moscow and represents the city at national competitions. She is coached by Vladimir and Elena Kuznetsov/a. She became gymternet famous when she was just a teeny tiny gymnast, so I still can't actually believe that she's a senior. Not only was she gymternet famous, she was also noticed by the national team when she was just a tiny baby, so her international career is very long, illustrious and occasionally strange. I swear she was once sent all the way to Asia just for a compulsory floor routine.

Her many, many medals from Russian Nationals include 2014 gold on floor and silver on all around, 2015 gold on beam and bronze on all around, 2016 gold on floor and bronze in the all around and 2017 silver on floor and bronze in the all around. Internationally she's a 2016 Team Junior European Champion. Her other international competitions include the ever traditional Gymnix, Jesolo and European Youth Olympic Festival, where she won bronze in the all around.

She's most famous for looking like a remnant from the good old Soviet times. She once had a fabulous haircut, old school routines and gainers. And she still actually has two of those, we unfortunately lost the haircut. She's a joy to watch with her cleverly constructed routines and natural charisma and truly shines on floor exercise and balance beam, where artistry still has its place. She never does the bare minimum that's today's standard, but has her routines filled with fun little elements that don't earn her any points in difficulty. Unfortunately she's extremely inconsistent on her best apparatus, beam, and has form issues everywhere. She trains the all around like all Russians, but I actually count her as an event specialist, because her bars and vault are too weak for real competitions. In terms of future potential, I still place her beneath Sima and Schek for now. As is obviously clear, I love her and her gymnastics, but unfortunately she tends to score quite low during international meets and hasn't progressed that much during the past few years. Hopefully she can prove me wrong.

VAULT:

As I said before, she's weak on vault and has been for a long while. It would have been time to upgrade years ago, she still vaults a front handspring tucked half. Yikes. We also have a video from years ago with a tsukahara layout. And I can't even says that her execution makes up for it, because yikes on that too. This vault is only 0.2 behind FTY in difficulty, but it scores much lower execution wise than yurchenkos and she has been doing this for years without progress. Girl, add a full twist to this or start going for the layout variations (with preferably more twists) or layout tsukaharas and we'll talk.

UNEVEN BARS:

Another weak event for her, but I'll give it her, she has gotten a lot better with her execution lately. It's still not great, but now her routines are watchable. Her difficulty has stayed very low though, like her vault, her bars has not seen any real upgrades (except for that dismount but we'll get to that) in years. Her routine is still very juniorish and the construction is a bit awkward. Her new full twisting double layout dismount is awesome, especially for a Russian, but it's not quite enough to save this routine.

BALANCE BEAM:

Balance beam is her best event and she looks absolutely amazing when she hits. I already talked about her unique and well constructed routines and traditionalist attitude to choreography, but her performance is top notch too and it all fits so nicely together. She is usually riddled with inconsistency and some questionable form, but at her best she is one of my favorites. And I actually included this hit routine from her in my Best and Worst of the Year -post. It's the best routine Zubs has ever done and I'm still not over it. It's a masterpiece. Watching it actually makes me momentarily forget what a dreadful dream crusher and shaky nightmare beam can be.

FLOOR EXERCISE:

Her floor routines were the reason we all fell in love with her when she was just a fetus and she still doesn't disappoint. Over the years she has been consistently cute and charming and always entertaining. Unfortunately her form has degraded over the years and her difficulty needs to be miles better in order to be competitive. I'm also curious to see how her cutesy style will develop when she's a senior.

BONUS:

Tiny Zubs in 2012. That's six years ago when she was 9 or 10 and already more famous than you.