A Look at the 2018 Russian Junior Nationals

Now that the Russian Cup is over, we can take a loot at the Russian Junior Championships that were held together with it. Together with Spartakiada, it gives us a pretty good idea of who's going to the Junior European Championships. I've had my team in mind ever since Jesolo and while this competition didn't have any huge surprises, it made me reconsider some things. The good news is, that the junior team has plenty of depth and they pretty much kicked the seniors' ass during the Russian Cup.

Gymnix 2018: A party for the new Lena and Vika

My Baby Swans competed at the Junior International Cup of the 2018 International Gymnix, as always, and looked like a healthy combination of beauty and hot mess, as always. This year our team consisted of two Gymnix veterans, Irina Komnova and Elena Gerasimova, and two newbies, Olga Astafyeva and Viktoria Listunova. They won silver in the team competition and a few individual medals too. I actually watched all of their routines and was really impressed.

Ira is apparently still coming back from an injury (ankle, maybe?) and looked tired as hell. She has also grown a lot this past year and while she was once tiny, she's now the tallest of the group by far. This combined with her exhausted appearance and weird mistakes made the poor girl look like she was ready to retire. Lena was the most confident out of everyone without any hint of nerves of inexperience. Olya was extremely nervous and shaky, while Vika spent her time looking suspicious and unsure about why she was even in Canada. I was close to laughing every time they showed her face. I was actually a tiny bit surprised about her selection to the team too, but she did really well for herself and absolutely deserved to be there. Or more than deserved to be there, she had the biggest medal haul with bronze on all around, silver on bars and gold on floor. Lena was next with gold on the uneven bars and bronze on floor.