Deriugina legs are a trademark of the ukrainian national team, which is coached by the Deriuginas mother(Albiuna) and daughter(Irina), and now granddaughter(Ireesha Blokhina).
The main characteristics are:
very long defined legs, narrow hips, short trunk. The gymnasts usually have very athletic and powerful legs, which allow them to reach maximal amplitude during their leaps (cf. Vika Mazur).
Also, the oversplit, no one can hit an oversplit mid air like a ukrainian (cf. Anna Bessonova, queen of legs, Anastasiia Mulmina..
Also, they usually don’t have a huge extended knee, though it depends on the gymnast.. Like they have a knee hyperextension, but not to the point where it looks the knee might snap.
to sum it up, they choose gymnasts with a certain physics (skinny, very long legs, rather short trunk) and have their own conditioning technique, the gymnasts have skinny but ripped legs, beautiful lines but still very powerful, defined form in the air, huge amplitude. Their leg flexibility is impressive but it’s not “noodly” like some gymnasts can be (for example, Sasha Soldatova, who is hyperflexible but doesn’t get much amplitude on her leaps)
Anna Bessonova with an incredible fixed oversplit position in the air:
Anastasiia Mulmina, who hits incredible oversplits in the air as well:
Vika Mazur, who doesn’t have the hugest oversplit, but gains incredible air during her leaps and has massive amplitude:
(see how her front leg doesn’t start going down until her back leg hits its highest point)
Tamara Yerofeeva, with her typical long skinny legs:
There are others like Viktoria Shynkarenko, Olena Diachenko, Alina Maksymenko…
It’s a trademark of almost all ukrainian gymnasts, though there are some exceptions, Ganna Rizatdinova has a rather long trunk for a ukrainian and while she has a nice oversplit, she doesn’t get as much air as others. Valeria Khanina has rather flat leaps and lacks a bit of leg flexibility (in comparison to others). Eleonora Romanova had the typical long skinny legs, but she lacked power (probably due to her hyperflexibility) and had quite a massive knee hyperextension.
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