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Nastia Liukin
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Anastasia Valeryevna "Nastia" Liukin (; born October 30, 1989) is a Russian-American artistic gymnast. She is the 2008 Olympic individual all-around gold medalist, the 2005 and 2007 World Champion on the balance beam, and the 2005 World Champion on the uneven bars. With nine World Championships medals, seven of them individual, Liukin is tied with Shannon Miller as the American gymnast having won the most World Championship medals.
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Encyclopedia
Anastasia Valeryevna "Nastia" Liukin (; born October 30, 1989) is a Russian-American artistic gymnast. She is the 2008 Olympic individual all-around gold medalist, the 2005 and 2007 World Champion on the balance beam, and the 2005 World Champion on the uneven bars. With nine World Championships medals, seven of them individual, Liukin is tied with Shannon Miller as the American gymnast having won the most World Championship medals. Liukin has also tied Miller's record as the American gymnast having won the most medals in a single non-boycotted Olympic Games.
The daughter of two former Soviet champion gymnasts, Olympic gold medalist Valeri Liukin - the first man to do a triple backflip - and World Champion rhythmic gymnast Anna Kotchneva, Nastia Liukin was born in Moscow and moved to the United States as a young child. She began gymnastics after spending time in the gym while her parents coached. Liukin is coached by her father at the World Olympic Gymnastics Academy, her family's gymnastics club in Plano, Texas.
Liukin became a member of the U.S. junior national team when she was 12 years old and won the National all-around title at the age of 13. She was the all-around silver medalist at the 2003 Pan American Games. Since 2005, Liukin has been a key member of the U.S. senior team. She is a four-time all-around U.S. National Champion, winning twice as a junior and twice as a senior. She has been the U.S. senior National Champion on the uneven bars since 2005. Liukin has represented the United States at three World Championships, the 2003 and 2007 Pan American Games, and the 2006 and 2008 Pacific Rim Championships.
Personal life
Liukin was born on October 30, 1989, in Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR. She is the only child of two former Soviet champion gymnasts: 1988 Summer Olympics gold medalist Valeri Liukin and 1987 World Clubs Champion in rhythmic gymnastics, Anna Kotchneva. Liukin and her family are members of the Russian Orthodox church. Her nickname Nastia is a Russian diminutive for Anastasia.
The family moved to the United States when Liukin was two and a half years old, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, and settled first in New Orleans before moving to Texas. In 1994, Valeri Liukin teamed with another former Soviet champion athlete, Evgeny Marchenko, to open the World Olympic Gymnastics Academy (WOGA) in Plano.
Liukin is fluent in English and Russian. She graduated from Spring Creek Academy, located in Plano, Texas, in the spring of 2007. As of Spring 2009, she currently attends Southern Methodist University. She had enrolled as a freshman international business major at Southern Methodist University in January 2008, but took a leave from classes to concentrate on preparations for the 2008 Olympic Games.
Junior career
Liukin began gymnastics at the age of three because she was "always hanging around in the gym" with her parents, who could not afford a babysitter to look after her while they were working as coaches. Liukin's parents initially did not aspire for their daughter to become a gymnast, knowing the pressure of high-level competition firsthand, but relented when they noticed her aptitude for the sport.
Liukin competed in her first National Championships as a junior in 2002, at the age of 12˝. In contrast to her WOGA teammates Carly Patterson and Hollie Vise who finished first and second respectively, Liukin suffered a fall on the uneven bars which rendered her unable to finish the routine. She continued through the rest of the competition, and despite the incomplete bars set, finished 15th, which landed her one of the final spots on the U.S. National Team. She was chosen to compete with the U.S. team at the 2002 Junior Pan American Championships, where she contributed to the team gold medal and placed second on the uneven bars, balance beam and all-around.
By 2003, Liukin was one of the strongest junior gymnasts in the United States. She won the junior division of the U.S. National Championships, as well as gold medals on three of the four events: uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise. She repeated these accomplishments in 2004. Liukin was a member of the gold-medal winning U.S. team at the 2003 Pan Am Games; she took second place in the all-around behind fellow American Chellsie Memmel. She also won the all-around in the junior division of the 2004 Pacific Alliance Championships.
Born in 1989, Liukin was one year too young to compete as a senior in 2004, and thus was not eligible for a place on the U.S. team for the 2004 Olympics in Athens. Her scores in the junior division at the 2004 U.S. National Championships were competitive with those being posted by the seniors, and Marta Karolyi, U.S. National Team Coordinator, has said that if Liukin had been eligible, she would have been named to the Olympic team.
Senior career
2005–2006
In 2005, Liukin won her first senior National Championships and, once again, earned gold medals on the bars and beam. At the 2005 World Championships in Melbourne, she was ranked first in the all-around after the preliminary competition. In the all-around final she technically accumulated the same total as Chellsie Memmel, but a scoring system that truncated the individual apparatus marks, as opposed to using the full scores or rounding up, artificially lowered Liukin's total score and she placed second. Memmel's final score was 37.824; Liukin's was 37.823; the competition was the closest in gymnastics history, excluding the all-around finals at the 1985 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, where USSR gymnasts Elena Shushunova and Oksana Omelianchik tied for the gold. Liukin rallied in event finals to win the gold on the uneven bars and balance beam, ahead of Memmel; and the silver on the floor exercise behind teammate Alicia Sacramone.
In March 2006, Liukin placed first in the all-around at the American Cup. At the 2006 Pacific Alliance Championships, Liukin tied with teammate Memmel for first in the all-around, won the uneven bars title and a silver medal on beam, and contributed to the U.S. team's gold medal performance. She competed at the 2006 U.S. Classic as the defending all-around champion, but falls on the uneven bars and floor resulted in a fourth-place finish. However, she scored extremely well on the balance beam, and was the only competitor in the meet, junior or senior, to earn a score over 16.00 on this event.
In late August, at the 2006 U.S. National Championships, Liukin successfully defended her all-around, beam and bars titles, becoming a two-time senior National Champion. She was named to the U.S. team for the 2006 World Gymnastics Championships in Aarhus, Denmark, and was expected by many to be a strong contender for the all-around title. However, due to an ankle injury sustained in training before the competition began, she was only able to compete on one event, the uneven bars. In spite of her injury, in the qualification round, Liukin's bars set earned a 16.2, the highest score of any competitor on any apparatus in the meet. Her bars routine in team finals scored a 15.7 and helped the U.S. team win the silver medal. Liukin also qualified for the event finals on bars, where she took a small step on her dismount and finished with a 16.05, earning a silver medal behind Britain's Beth Tweddle.
2007
Liukin's ankle injury required surgery, and the recovery period kept her out of both national and international competition for much of the year. In July 2007, although she was still recovering from her injury, she returned to competition as a member of the American team for the Pan Am Games in Rio de Janeiro. She competed only on bars and beam, contributing to the team's gold medal finish and winning individual silver medals on both events.
Despite limited training time on floor and vault in the summer of 2007, Liukin opted to compete all-around at the 2007 U.S. National Championships. She posted the highest score of the entire meet on bars and the second highest score on beam on the second day of competition, winning the senior bars title for the third year in a row and placing second on beam. However, she also suffered several falls and errors on floor and vault, and finished in third place overall, more than five points behind Shawn Johnson, the all-around gold medalist.
Following Nationals, Liukin was named to the American team for the World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany, competing all-around in the team qualifying round and in on bars and beam in the finals. Liukin's score for her bars routine in team finals was a 16.375, the highest score of the day and, in the end, the entire World Championships. However, at the end of her beam routine, her foot slipped while she was setting up her dismount, prompting her to change her usual skill, a two and a half twisting salto, to a simple back tuck. While she lost credit for her dismount, she also avoided a deduction for a fall, and earned a 15.175. The team recovered from this and other mistakes to finish first overall with 184.400, nearly a point ahead of the silver medal Chinese.
Liukin's struggles with the balance beam continued in the all-around final, where she fell from the apparatus during her flight series. In spite of a 16.100 on bars, the highest score of the day from any competitor on any event, she finished the competition in fifth place. In the event finals, however, Liukin rallied and regained her World Champion title on the balance beam with a score of 16.025. She also earned a silver on the uneven bars, scoring a 16.300 after taking a step on her dismount.
2008
Liukin's first meet of the 2008 season was the American Cup in New York City, where she defeated 2007 winner Shawn Johnson to regain her title. She posted the highest score of the meet, a 16.600 on the uneven bars. In March, Liukin competed at the Pacific Rim (formerly Pacific Alliance) Championships in San Jose, where she led the American team to a gold medal and won the all-around and balance beam titles. In the team competition, Liukin posted an all-time high score of 16.650 on the uneven bars, but in event finals, she fell on her Gienger release move and took a step on her dismount, earning a 15.225 and taking second place.
At the 2008 U.S. National Championships in Boston, Liukin fell on floor on the first day of competition, but had a strong meet on her other events and placed second in the all-around behind Shawn Johnson. She regained her National Champion title on the beam and defended her national title on the uneven bars for the fourth consecutive year, scoring a 17.050 in preliminaries and a 17.100 in finals, the highest recorded score for any American gymnast at any event since the advent of the new Code of Points. In June, Liukin competed in the U.S. Olympic Trials in Philadelphia, finishing second behind Johnson, and earning a berth on the American team for Beijing.
2008 Olympics
Liukin performed all-around in the qualifying round of competition. She qualified to the all-around final with a score of 62.375, which ranked her second among all competitors and 0.35 points behind Shawn Johnson, her friend and Olympic roommate. Liukin also qualified to three event finals: beam, uneven bars and floor exercise; more than any other American competitor.
In the team finals, Liukin performed on three events: beam, bars and floor exercise. Her uneven bars score of 16.900 was the highest mark awarded in the entire competition. Liukin performed second on balance beam, matching her qualifying score of 15.975. On floor exercise, she stepped out of bounds, incurring a 0.10 point penalty. The American team earned the silver medal, 2.375 points behind China.
On August 15, Liukin performed clean routines on all four events to win the all-around gold medal with a final score of 63.325. Shawn Johnson took the silver medal with a score of 62.725. The win marks the third time that an American woman has won the Olympic all-around title; Mary Lou Retton and Carly Patterson are the two previous American gold medalists. It is also the fourth time in the history of the Games that two athletes from the same country have taken first and second place in the women's all-around. The last time this was accomplished was the 2000 Olympics, when Romanian gymnasts won gold and silver; Soviet gymnasts also won gold and silver all-around medals at the 1952 and 1960 Games.
In the event finals, Liukin earned a bronze medal on floor exercise. On uneven bars, Liukin and China's He Kexin both posted final marks of 16.725, and earned identical A and B-panel scores of 7.70 and 9.025, respectively. However, He Kexin won the gold medal, and Liukin was awarded the silver, after a tie-breaking calculation that took into account individual marks given by judges on the B-panel. In the balance beam final, Liukin finished second behind Shawn Johnson. With her fifth Beijing medal, Liukin tied Mary Lou Retton and Shannon Miller for the most gymnastics medals won by an American in a single Olympic Games.
Routines
As of 2008, Liukin performs the following skills on these apparatuses:
| Apparatus | Skills | A Score | Top Score in World Championship/World Cup/Olympic Competition | | Vault | Yurchenko 1-1/2 | 5.5 | 15.100 (Olympic Qualifications) | | Uneven Bars | Glide kip cast to HS (KCHS), Stalder shoot to HB (Ray); KCHS, Pike stalder 1/2 to eagle grip, Eagle endo, Ono, Healy, Ono 1/2, Gienger; KCHS, Pike stalder, Tkachev; KCHS, Pak salto; KCHS 1/2, Toe shoot to HB; KCHS, Giant 1/2 to eagle, double front 1/2 dismount | 7.7 | 16.900 (Olympic Team Final) | | Balance Beam | Press to handstand mount; front aerial, backhandspring, layout step-out; full turn with leg at horizontal; switch leap 1/2; split jump, sheep jump; side somi; onodi, wolf jump 1/1; salto forward piked,take off from one leg to one foot landing to scale,hold for two seconds; swtich ring leap; roundoff (RO) 2-1/2 twist dismount | 6.7 | 16.125 (Olympic AA final) | | Floor Exercise | Front Handspring (FHS), front layout 1/1, front 2/1; FHS Double front; Switch ring, Split leap full; RO 1-1/2, Rudi; Double turn w/ leg at horizontal; Switch leap 1/2; RO 2-1/2 dismount | 6.2 | 15.525 (Olympic AA final) |
Floor Music
2001-2003: "Rondo Capriccioso" by Camielle Saint-Saens
2004-2006: "Second Kill" and "Building the Bullet" by Luis Bacalov
2006-present: "Dark Eyes"
Media appearances
Film and television
Outside of competitive gymnastics, Liukin has cameo roles the April 2006 Touchstone Pictures film Stick It, and 2008 episode of Gossip Girl. She has expressed a desire to become an actress in the future. Following the Beijing Olympics, Liukin appeared on many talk shows in the United States, including The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night With Conan O'Brien, and the Oprah Winfrey Show.
Liukin was on The Tour of Gymnastics Superstars, which was broadcast nationwide on MyNetworkTV. Tapings of the second show of the tour were included in Frosted Pink with a Twist, which was a television special about women's cancers. The TV special aired on ABC on October 12, 2008, and featured singers Jesse McCartney, Kenny Loggins, Cyndi Lauper and Carole King.
Endorsements
Liukin has her own line of gymnastics equipment, which includes mats and balance beams in her signature pink, produced by American Athletic, Inc.
Liukin's corporate sponsors include Visa, AT&T, GK Elite Sportswear and Longines. She appeared in an adidas commercial with Nadia Comaneci which ran during the 2004 Olympics and a 2008 commercial for Visa Inc. After the Beijing Olympics, she was signed to be one of two American Olympians featured on Wheaties cereal boxes.
Liukin has expressed interest in the fashion world; she has served as a Longines Sports Ambassador of Elegance since 2006 and, along with her teammates Shawn Johnson and Alicia Sacramone, was one of the the first female athletes ever to be signed as CoverGirl spokesmodels. She also collaborated with Vanilla Star Jeans to create a junior girls' clothing line and has modeled for Max Azria.
In October 2008, Liukin partnered with World Vision to help her home state of Texas to recover from Hurricane Ike.
Competitive history
External links
- **, on Time’s list of "100 Olympic Athletes To Watch"
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