Who Is Elena Eremina? 6 Facts About The Russian Gymnast

Quick Facts

Gymnasts come and go but some of them give us more than spectacular flips, tumbles, and feats of physical ingenuity; some of them reach above the cut and somehow stay in our hearts and minds even after they have long left the stage. Elena Eremina belongs to that unconventional category of gymnasts. Even though her career is far from finished, the little burst of wonder from Russia has shown a spirit that has endeared fans of the sport to her for more than just her skills on a balance beam.

The gymnast is a picture of resilience and has surmounted every obstacle in front of her no matter how life or career threatening they have proven to be. She is a true model and inspiration to people the world over.

Who Is Elena Eremina?

As mentioned earlier, Elena Vyacheslavovna Eremina is a gymnast that hails from Saint Petersburg, Russia. As with every gymnast, the Russian started training in her home city as a little girl and slowly made it onto the world stage.

Elena has been in so many tournaments, she or her fans may have lost count. Some of them include the Dityatin Cup, Russian Artistic Gymnastics Championships, Russian Cup, and European Championships. She has also garnered enough medals over the course of her career to stake her claim as one of the best gymnasts in recent history.

Facts About The Russian Gymnast

1. Elena’s professional debut wasn’t all she had hoped

The gymnast came on the professional scene in 2012 with her participation in the 2012 Dityatin Cup. Every beginner hopes to hit the ground running, seeing as they have more to prove than all those that have come before them. However, the athlete’s efforts could only take her so far in her professional debut. Elena Eremina’s participation saw her placed 16th all-around.

2. She is a comeback queen

Refusing to give in, she was back in the competition the following year, and this time her efforts yielded far better results. She clinched the fourth position for her floor routines, a bronze for her balance beam performance and three gold medals for the uneven bars, all-around and home team performances.

She would go on to participate in other competitions like the Russian Hope Cup and the Pas de Calais International in France. In both tournaments, she again won a plethora of gold medals and some silver and bronze with her team as well as individual gold medals for the vault, balance beam, uneven bars events, and floor exercises in 2013 and 2014.

3. Elena Eremina made her senior professional debut a year late

The Russian gymnast’s last junior professional competition was the 2016 European Championships, held in the first week of June. This was supposed to be her first year as a senior professional gymnast. However, due to the fact that her 16th birthday was after the 2016 Rio Olympics, she was still 15 by the time the event was held. This meant that she had to wait another year to make her senior debut. However, this did not stop Elena from picking up the all-around gold medal at the 2016 European Championships.

4. She made her senior debut in her home country

Elena Eremina finally made her senior professional bow at the 2017 Russian Artistic Gymnastics Championships. Although she did not perform as well as she’d hoped, she was one of the gymnasts picked to represent Russia at the Team Competition in Stuttgart. Here, her perfect routines on the uneven bars, balance beam, floor, and vault helped Russia to a gold medal.

5. Elena Eremina had to undergo surgery in 2018

As a result of spinal problems, the Russian star had to go under the knife for an artificial disk replacement surgery to help provide stability for her two lumbar vertebrae. This surgery happened in February 2018, making her ineligible for selection for the 2018 European and World Championships. The gymnast stayed positive, however, and followed all the happenings in the gymnastics world until she was fit to train again.

6. She started a campaign to help upgrade her local gym

Back in her hometown of Saint Petersburg, Eremina, along with her fellow gymnast friends train at a local gymnastics school. However, in 2018, it became clear that the new building the gym had been moved to was far from adequately equipped to handle world standard gymnastics training.

The gym only had old apparatus, dangerous concrete floors, and the absence of a pit. Not to mention it was a space that wasn’t big enough to accommodate the many children that practiced there. After it became clear that the local Petersburg admin was not willing to help refurbish the space, Elena took the cause to Instagram to alert the public of the problem and asked her followers to post and repost the message as they were in danger of losing the gym.

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