Fun fact: in her recent interview Elena Yurieva said that she did get a call from Pankov and was invited to the Russian NT, B team. But she refused cos a) there's Obmochaeva and she's more important for the team than her, b) she's dealing with an injury and needs to take care of her body c) at 30 it's a bit late to debut in the NT. She also said that with Zaryazhko, Shlyakhovaya, Fetisova and Orlova Russian team doesn't have any problems with MBs. She also praised Orlova and put her in the top 5 MB ranking (the others were Poljak, Rasic, Walewska and Fabiana).
It's been years, but I'm still sad about the fact that we couldn't managed to get her into the Polish NT.