Maria Paseka

Maria Paseka
Paseka at the 2012 Russian National Championships
Full name	Maria Valeryevna Paseka
Nickname(s)	Masha (by her teammates), Bee Farm (by fans)
Country represented	Russia
Born	July 19, 1995 (age 18) Moscow, Moscow Oblast, Russia
Club	Central Army Sports Club (CSKA) Dynamo Moscow (former)
Coach(es)	Evgeny Grebyonkin, Marina Ulyankina Nadezhda Galtsova and Vyacheslav Selifanov, Aleksandr Aleksandrov (former)
Current status	Active

Maria Valeryevna Paseka (Russian: Мария Валерьевна Пасека, born July 19, 1995) is a Russian artistic gymnast. She began gymnastics when she was six years old — and she made the choice herself. Her career began at the world-renowned Moscow Dynamo gymnastics club where her first coaches were Nadezhda Galtsova and Vyacheslav Selifanov. In 2009, she began training with Marina Gennadyevna Ulyankina and now trains at Round Lake outside of Moscow with her coach and the Russian National Team coaches. Marina Ulyankina helped Maria show her talent and 2010 was a very fruitful year for Maria and opened the doors to the future.

Junior Career

2010

She was on the winning Russian junior team at the 2010 European Championships where she also won a silver medal on vault. Maria also won a Russian national title in 2010. She was third in the all-around qualifications, but the two-per-country rule kept her in the spectators' stands during the final.

Senior Career

2011

At the beginning of 2011 and after a number of operations and physical therapy, Maria returned to training in the gym. He first meet was in August at the Russia Cup in Yekaterinburg. There she won the bronze medal on vault. Maria currently has the most difficult vault on the Russian team.

2012

On July 7th, Paseka was named to the Russian team for the Olympic Games.

During qualifications, Paseka qualified third to the vault event final.

During the team final, Paseka only competed on vault, where she scored a 15.300 after taking a larg step out of bounds. In the last rotation, after teammate Anastasia Grishina's floor routine (where she received a 12.466), Paseka and her teammates were all in tears, as they thought they hadn't done enough to even medal. When they found out they won the silver, placing behind the United States and ahead of Romania, they were all smiles during the medal ceremony.

In the vault event final, Paseka went up sixth. On her first vault, she took another large step out of bounds like in the team final and scored a 15.400. Her second vault scored a 14.700, averaging out to a 15.050. She won the bronze behind Romania's Sandra Izbasa and USA's McKayla Maroney.

2013

In January, Paseka was announced as part of the lineup for the La Roche-sur-Yon World Cup. However, when she arrived in France in March, she was denied entry due to a visa problem and had to return to Moscow.

In March, Paseka competed at the Russian Championships. She helped her team, Moscow, win the silver medal in the team final, won the vault, and placed eighth on uneven bars. Later that month, Paseka was named to the Russian team for the European Championships.

At the European Championships, Paseka was the favorite for the vault title, but surprisingly fell on both her vaults and finished seventh in the final. Afterwards, Paseka bounced back by winning bronze on the uneven bars behind compatriot Aliya Mustafina and Sweden's Jonna Alderteg.

In July, Paseka competed at the Universiade, winning gold with the team and bronze on vault. In August, she competed at the Russian Cup, winning silver on vault and bars, bronze on floor, and placing fourth in the team final.

Paseka was named to the Russian team for the World Championships. She was going to compete vault, bars, and floor, but began to suffer back problems, and dropped the latter two events. Then, her back problems got worse, and she withdrew from the World Championships.

She was selected to compete at the Swiss Cup in early November, but withdrew, as she was not fully healed yet.

2014

Her first competition back was the Russian Championships in April, where she only competed on vault and bars. She won silver with her team and on vault.

Trivia

• One gymnastics fan used Google Translate to translate a Russian article about her. Her name was translated to "Maria Bee Farm". Since then, many gymnastics fans have called her "Bee Farm".

Medal Count

Year	Event	TF	AA	VT	UB	BB	FX
2010	Birmingham Junior European Championships	1st		2nd
2011	Russian Cup			3rd
2012	London Olympic Games	2nd		3rd
2013	Russian Championships	2nd		1st	8
	Moscow European Championships			7	3rd
	Universiade	1st		3rd
	Russian Cup	4		2nd	2nd		3rd
2014	Russian Championships	2nd		2nd

Floor Music

2009-2010 - "Aranjuez (Mon Amour)" by Herb Alpert

2011-2012 - "Hasta Que Te Conoci" by Raul Di Blasio/ "Call Me, Call" by Natasha Koroleva"