Nastia Liukin

At 35 years old, Nastia Liukin has this physical status:

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 and a half. In contrast to her WOGA teammates Carly Patterson and Hollie Vise, who finished first and second, respectively, Liukin fell on the uneven bars that 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 and balance beam and in the 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 ten months 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.

Senior career

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 finished second in the all-around behind teammate Chellsie Memmel with a score of 37.823.

In event finals, she won the gold on the uneven bars and balance beam and the silver on the floor exercise.

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 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, because of an ankle injury, she was only able to compete on the uneven bars. 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, scoring 16.05 to earn a silver medal behind Britain's Beth Tweddle.

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 in the uneven bars and balance beam finals.

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 made several falls and errors on floor and vault, finishing 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, where she competed all-around in the team qualifying round and 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, she made an error at the end of her beam routine and scored 15.175. The team recovered from this and other mistakes to finish first overall with 184.400.

Liukin's struggles with the balance beam continued in the all-around final, where she fell. She finished the competition in fifth place. In the event finals, however, Liukin regained her world champion title on the balance beam with a score of 16.025. She also earned a silver on the uneven bars behind Russia's Ksenia Semenova, scoring a 16.300 after taking a step on her dismount.

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, Nastia 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 the floor on her double front tuck 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 spot on the American team for Beijing.

Liukin performed all-around in the qualifying round of competition. She fell on her dismount from the uneven bars, but nevertheless qualified to the all-around final with a score of 62.325. Liukin also qualified to three event finals: beam, uneven bars (in spite of the fall) and floor exercise.

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 Olympic competition. Liukin performed second on balance beam, matching her qualifying score of 15.975. On floor exercise, she stepped out of bounds on her first tumbling pass, incurring a 0.1-point penalty, with a final score of 15.200. The American team earned the silver medal, 2.375 points behind China.

On August 15, Liukin performed clean routines on all four events (sticking her landings on three out of 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 marked the third time that an American woman had won the Olympic all-around title; Mary Lou Retton and Carly Patterson were the two previous American gold medalists. It was also the fourth time in the history of the Games that two athletes from the same country had taken first and second place in the women's all-around.

In the event finals, Liukin earned a surprising bronze medal on floor exercise with a score of 15.425, behind Shawn Johnson, with 15.500, and Romanian Sandra Izbasa, with 15.650. 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 was awarded the gold medal, and Liukin got 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 scored 16.025 to claim silver behind Shawn Johnson's 16.225. 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.

Following her success in Beijing, Liukin was named the USOC Female Athlete of the Month (August) and ultimately USOC Co-Sportswoman of the Year alongside swimmer Natalie Coughlin; the Women's Sports Foundation Individual Sportswoman of the Year; FIG Athlete of the Year and USAG Sportswoman of the Year. In addition, she was ranked third in the Associated Press' 2008 Female Athlete of the Year voting.

Liukin decided that she was not done with gymnastics and made her first post-Olympics competitive appearance at the CoverGirl Classic, where she competed only on balance beam. She placed second behind teammate Ivana Hong. Liukin thought about competing uneven bars and beam at the U.S. Championships, but decided to once again just perform on beam, placing fourth. Liukin was added to the national team and included in the World Championships selection camp. However, she pulled out of Worlds selection consideration because she felt that she was not up to World Championships standards.

After several months of conditioning, training, revamping routines and showing readiness at summer training camp, Liukin petitioned for a spot at the Visa National Championships. In order for the petition to be granted, she had to show readiness by scoring at least a 14.0 on one apparatus at a qualifying event (the U.S. Secret Classic) on May 26. She did so, scoring a 14.9 on balance beam.

On beam at the Visa Championships, Liukin scored a 15.1 on night one, followed by a 14.1 on night two to place sixth on the event. On bars, she placed 20th after scoring a 13.150 on night one and 13.650 on night two. Despite this, Liukin was chosen to compete at the Olympic Trials.

Liukin's gymnastics career came to an end after the 2012 Olympic Trials. On the final night of competition, she fell off the bars on her Gienger release, but got back up to finish her routine and landed her first competitive dismount since her comeback. Her bars routine received a 13.950. Her beam routine scored a 14.950, and she did not make the Olympic team. Despite the end of her gymnastics career, Liukin went to London as the athlete representative for the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG).

Since 2012, Liukin has been an NBC Sports analyst for gymnastics.

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