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| Birth Name(s) : Nastia Liukin |
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Full Nastia Liukin Biography
Anastasia Valeryevna Liukina (Russian: Анастасия 'алерьевна Люкина; 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 which are individual, Liukin is currently tied with Shannon Miller as the most decorated American gymnast in World Championships history.
Nastia competed in her first National Championships as a junior in 2002. 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. Despite the incompleted routine, Nastia continued to compete on the remainder of the apparatus and ultimately finished 15th, which landed her one of the final spots on the U.S. National Team. In 2003, Liukin became the Junior National Champion and won event final gold medals on the uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise. She would repeat these accomplishments in 2004. Liukin was a member of the gold-medal winning US team at the 2003 Pam 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, Nastia was not eligible for the 2004 Olympics in Athens. Marta Karolyi, U.S. National Team Coordinator, has said that if Nastia had been eligible, she would have been named to the Olympic team.
In 2005, Nastia won her first senior National Championships and, once again, earned gold medals on the bars and beam. At the 2005 World Championships in Melbourne, Nastia was ranked first in the all-around after the preliminary competition. However, in the finals she finished second to teammate Chellsie Memmel. Memmel's final score was 37.824; Liukin's was 37.823; the competition was the closest in gymnastics history, excluding the tie 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 American Alicia Sacramone.
In March of 2006, Liukin placed first in the all-around at the American Cup. She qualified to this competition with her 1st place all-around performance in the Preliminary round. At the 2006 Pacific Alliance Championships, Liukin tied with Chellsie Memmel for first in the all-around, won the uneven bars title and a silver on beam, and contributed to the US team's gold medal performance. She competed at the 2006 US 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.
Following Nationals, Liukin was named to the American team for the World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany. The team finished the qualifying round in first, four points over the nearest team, the Chinese. Liukin qualified second overall for the all-around competition and also qualified for beam and bars event finals. In the team finals, Liukin competed on bars and beam. Her score on bars was a 16.375, the highest score of the day and the highest score of the entire World Championships. During her beam routine, her foot slipped while she was setting up her dismount, prompting her to change it to a simpler skill than she normally performs. 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.
In the all-around competition, Liukin again had difficulty with her beam routine, falling from the apparatus. She finished in fifth place overall and posted the highest score of the meet, a 16.100 on bars. In the event finals, 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, scoring a 16.300 after taking a step on her dismount.
Outside of competitive gymnastics, Liukin has also 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 film Stick It. She has several corporate sponsorships, including Visa, AT&T, GK Elite Sportswear, Longines and Adidas, and has served as a Longines Sports Ambassador of Elegance since 2006. She also has her own line of gymnastics equipment produced by AAI.
Liukin is fluent in both English and Russian. She graduated from high school in the spring of 2007, and was accepted to Southern Methodist University. |
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