"Many thanks to everyone involved in this victory!" — Yana Zaikina after the AEON Cup

An interview with Yana Zaikina from Volgograd, the winner of the AEON Cup junior all-around and the club standings. 

The routines that worked out the best for me were probably ribbon and hoop. The support was huge. On the final day, even more people came. They were clapping, supporting, and cheering at every risk and every turn. They looked so amazed, and it made me really happy that I was bringing joy to the spectators.

The gymnast talked about her preparation for the tournament in Japan: 

Alina Maratovna was in touch via video calls and during our control training sessions. We had two of them. I did well on the first one, my run-through was completely clean. On the second one, I only had a drop in my hoop routine on a skill. She praised me and said that there was no need to get discouraged — ‘only stay in a good mood, only look forward,’ that getting there was already a huge step forward for me personally. And that's why I just had to enjoy the moment. I want to say a huge thank you to Evgeniya Mikhailovna for going through this training journey with me. It was very tough, but cool at the same time. Thanks very much to her. Thanks to Olga Dmitrievna for supporting and preparing me as well. She supported me here before every single day, so a huge thank you to her too. And, of course, to Alina Maratovna for coming to the training sessions, going through the plan with us, and for providing the kind of plan that prepared me so well for this competition. Generally, a huge thank you to everyone involved in this victory.

She also thanked fans: 

I wanted to send a huge thank you to everyone who rooted for me and supported me because I could feel it. When I stepped onto the carpet, I knew that there were so many people cheering and supporting me. It felt very heartwarming. With every movement, I kept reminding myself: ‘I need to focus for everyone who believes in me and not let anyone down.’

And shared her impressions of discovering a new country and performing at the competition. 

I have only positive impressions because I have never been to Tokyo, to Japan. I like it here very very much. People here are so kind. Everyone bows like this and says ‘thank you’ in Russian. And I think this tournament was airy. Everything here was just top-notch. Thanks so much everyone! What stood out to me the most was Hello Kitty walking around and entertaining the spectators and us as well. And after the routines, we would sit on the couches, waving like this, and Hello Kitty was sitting right next to us. It was so cute.

Yana Zaikina from Volgograd is a European champion and a silver medalist of the national championship. The gymnast is a member of the main Russian national team, lives and trains at the Alina Kabaeva Sky Grace Rhythmic Gymnastics Academy. Her coaches are Evgeniya Eliseeva and Olga Minigalina, and her choreographer is Elena Egorova.

Mariia Borisova from St. Petersburg, Yana Zaikina from Volgograd, and Sofia Ilteryakova from Moscow are partners of the Sky Grace International Association. At the AEON Cup, they represented Russia, as well as the Association as its partners.