Everything about Nastia Liukin totally explained
Anastasia Valeryevna Liukin (; born
October 30,
1989), better known as
Nastia Liukin, is an
American gymnast. She is a four-time U.S. National Champion in
artistic gymnastics and is the 2007 and 2005 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 currently tied with
Shannon Miller as having won the most World Championship medals of any American gymnast in history.
Liukin is coached by her father,
Valeri Liukin, at her family's gymnastics club, WOGA, in
Plano,
Texas.
Early life and family
Nastia Liukin was born on October 30, 1989 in
Moscow,
Russia. She is the only child of two former Soviet champion gymnasts:
1988 Olympic gold medalist
Valeri Liukin and
1987 World Champion in
rhythmic gymnastics, Anna Kotchneva.
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.
Junior career
Liukin began gymnastics at the age of 3 because she was "always hanging around in the gym" with her parents, who couldn't afford a babysitter to look after her while they were working as coaches. Liukin's parents initially didn't 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 1/2. While her WOGA teammates
Carly Patterson and
Hollie Vise finished first and second, 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.
Born in 1989, Liukin was one year too young to compete as a senior in 2004, and thus wasn't 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'd 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 of 2006, Liukin placed first in the all-around at the American Cup. At the 2006
Pacific Alliance Championships, Liukin tied with teammate and frequent competitive rival Chellsie 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.
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, over 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 16.6 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 16.65 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.
Other achievements
Outside of competitive gymnastics, Liukin has made several appearances in film and television, most notably a commercial for
Adidas with
Nadia Comaneci, which ran during the
2004 Olympics, and a cameo in the April 2006
Disney film
Stick It. She has expressed a desire to become an actress in the future. She also has her own line of gymnastics equipment, which includes mats and balance beams in her signature pink, produced by AAI.
Liukin is fluent in English and Russian.
She graduated from high school in the spring of 2007 and enrolled as a freshman at
Southern Methodist University in January 2008, but is currently taking a leave from classes to concentrate on preparations for the 2008 Olympic Games.
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