Russian women at the Pacific Rim competition - biographical information

The Pacific Rim competition is now well under way, and proving to be interesting.  Russia sent junior and senior teams in both the men's and women's competitions, with the juniors providing a real point of interest in terms of selection for the forthcoming Junior European Championships.  Startlists for today's men's competition can be found here and here.  Quick hit descriptions of routines for the men's and women's competitions can also be found here.  Gymnastics Examiner also has a list of which of the women have qualified for event finals tomorrow.

Full results of the women's junior competition show Rostov-on-Don's Maria Kharenkova providing the highlight of the Russian performance across both seniors and juniors, to finish fourth (52.95) with a high note of 14 on her specialist piece, beam.  Ekaterina Baturina finished 5th, only .6 behind Kharenkova. Anastasia Belova ended in 10th place. 

In the senior competition newcomer Anastasia Marchuk led the way for the Russian team but could not finish higher than 9th.  Senior team members Maria Stepanova and Diana Elkina both performed only partial competitions for the team.  

Basic biographical details are given for all the girls below, along with little portrait photographs to aid recognition.  Interesting to see the emerging importance of Rostov on Don as a training centre for national team members (Kharenkova/Belokobylskaya/Sidorova) and also how so many team members are paired with others from their home clubs: Belova and Marchuk hail from the same local team; Baturina and Elkina both come from Volzhski; Stepanova trains in Fryazina alongside emerging junior Bondareva.

Anastasia Belova, born 1st January 1997

Anastasia Ivanovna Belova, born 1st January 1997, trains in Moscow with coaches O G Petrovicheva, G N Petrovichev, D N Gusev, R M Ganina.  Belova came second all around in the Moscow Candidate Master of Sports competition in November 2010, won beam and has a clear strength in bars also.

Ekaterina Baturina, born 29th April 1997

Ekaterina Sergeievna Baturina, born 29th April 1997, trains in Volzhski with coaches E A Grebenkin and Y V Grebenkina (Evgenyi Grebenkin is a National team coach, specialising in bars).  Baturina is known to be a good beam specialist, boasting a 6.4 start value as early as November 2010, and achieving the silver medal behind the younger Bondareva at last December's Voronin Cup.

Anastasia Marchuk, born 30th October 1996

Anastasia Viktorevna Marchuk, born 30th October 1996.  Anastasia trains with Belova in Moscow with the same team of coaches, Petrovicheva, Petrovichev, Gusev and Ganina and finished third behind Belova and Maria Mager at the 2010 Candidate Master of Sports competition.  Her strongest apparatus is vault.

Maria Kharenkova, born 29th April 1998

Maria Alexandrovna Kharenkova, born 29th April 1998.  Maria trains in Rostov on Don at the same club as senior national team members Yulia Belokobylskaya and Anastasia Sidorova.  Her coaches are Ruslan Lavrov (former coach to Elena Produnova and, before that, Svetlana Grozdova), V V Yakubova and N E Zubrilov.  Kharenkova is gaining a strong reputation for her light, confident performances on beam, quite right for someone with such a distinguished Rostov pedigree!  She took silver on this piece behind leading Russian junior Evgeniya Shelgunova at last December's Voronin Cup, and topped the junior division all around at last month's Moscow Regional Championships.

Diana Elkina, born 3rd November 1996

Diana Dmitrievna Elkina, born 3rd November 1996.  Diana trains in Volzhski alongside Ekaterina Baturina.  She is part of the senior national selection squad in preparation for this summer's Olympics.

Maria Stepanova, born 27th December 1995

Maria Sergeievna Stepanova, born 27th December 1995.  Maria trains in Fryazino, Moscow Oblast, alongside junior Maria Bondareva with coaches Pursheva and Bachurin.  She is a national squad member preparing for the Olympics.  She competed at last year's Ghent Challenger Cup alongside her Central area team mates, Viktoria Komova and Yulia Inshina.  Her strongest piece is bars.

With thanks to the Russian Gymnastics Federation for their kind permission to use the pictures here.