Valeriya Khanina is a gymnast who was born in Donetsk, Ukraine. Last year, “Lera” (short Ukrainian nickname) moved to Kiev for training with national team as a junior gymnast . Since that, Valeriya is one of the top junior individual gymnast of the world, Champion of Ukraine and silver medallist with ribbon European Championships Baku 2014. Her team mates are Yana Yarosh, Mariya Mulik and Valeriya Yuzvyak.

“Donetsk has never had a very popular gymnast, we have football, but maybe if I work hard, I could become a good gymnast. This is my dream”

Former Ukrainian champion, Alina Maksymenko, helped Irina Deriugina with Valeriya’s choreographies and traveled with her to several competitions, like Moscow Grand Prix. Junior GP competition was the event to qualify for Youth Olympic Games, where Valeriya competed against Margarita Vasilieva. Alina is really admired by Valeriya Khanina.

“My favorite apparatus are ribbon and clubs”

Irina Deriugina chose her to represent Ukraine in Youth Olympic Games 2014 as an individual gymnast, being one of the favorites for a medal.

” Our team is very strong. We are fed properly with a good morning breakfast: eggs, cereals and tea. For dinner we eat boiled fish, buckwheat, vegetables and salad. I have never felt hungry and even sometimes we can eat chocolate and ice creams”

Valeriya is one of the favorites for Youth Olympic Games in Rhythmic Gymnastics