Yulia Lozhechko

Yulia Aleksandrovna Lozhechko ( _ru. Юлия Александровна Ложечко, born on December 14 1989, in Bryansk, Russia) is a Russian artistic gymnast. She is the only child of Olga and Aleksandr. Yulia began gymnastics at age 7 and was coached by her mother Olga. Yulia's talent was spotted and she was sent to train at Round Lake as part of the Russian National Team.

Yulia competed at the 2004 Junior European Championships where she won a gold medal as part of the Russian Team. Yulia also won a silver medal on the balance beam and a bronze medal in the All Around final. She also qualified to the Floor and Uneven Bars finals.

In 2005, Yulia became age eligible for senior competition. She won a bronze medal in the All Around at the 2005 European Champioships behind Marina Debauve of France and fellow Russian Anna Pavlova. At the World Championships later that year, she qualified to the balance beam final but failed to medal after a fall left her in 7th position. At the 2006 European Championships, she was part of the Russian Team which won the bronze medal. Although she did not win an indivdual medal, she did qualify to two event finals - uneven bars and balance beam. She was selected to compete at the 2006 World Championships, but broke fingers in training and had to withdraw.

The highlight so far of Yulia's career came at the 2007 European Championships where she won the Gold Medal on the balance beam with a score of 15.675. She also placed 4th in the vault final. Yulia was selected for the Russian Team for the 2007 World Championships. The Russian team was set to medal until an unfortunate error from Ekaterina Kramarenko which nullified her Vault left the Russians in 8th. Despite this, the team qualified for the 2008 Summer Olympics where Lozchecko was included in the squad but did not compete.

Lozchecko and teammate Maxsim Devyatovski were banned from the national training center in Round Lake after the 2007 Worlds. During the preliminary competition, she changed her balance beam routine in order to qualify for the event final but fell. She was alowed to return in december 2007 but she and the head coach Kiryashov are still feuding. Kiryashov blames Yulia's poor performance on "mental issues" saying that "Yulia simply has psychological problems," he said. "I know exactly what they are, but I don't want to talk about it. When she listened to us, the coaches, everything was fine, but as soon as she tries to do everything on her own and to her own taste she has immediate problems. We know that Lozhechko is going through hard times. But we are trying to help, and I hope soon everything will be fine again."

Yulia's favourite apparatus is floor and she admires Alexei Nemov, Aleksei Bondarenko and Svetlana Khorkina. She collets angel figurines and loves Cats.

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