Anastasia "Nastia" Valeryevna Liukin (; ; born October 30, 1989) is a Russian-born American former artistic gymnast. She is the 2008 Olympic all-around champion, a five-time Olympic medalist, the 2005 and 2007 World champion on the balance beam, and the 2005 World champion on the uneven bars. She is also a four-time all-around U.S. national champion, winning twice as a junior and twice as a senior. With nine World Championships medals, seven of them individual, Liukin is tied with Shannon Miller for the third-highest tally of World Championship medals among U.S. gymnasts. Liukin also tied Miller's record (later equaled by Simone Biles) as the American gymnast having won the most medals in a single non-boycotted Olympic Games. In October 2011, Liukin announced that she was returning to gymnastics with the hopes of making a second Olympic team. Liukin did not make the 2012 Olympic team and retired from the sport on July 2, 2012.
Personal life
Liukin was born on October 30, 1989, in Moscow, Russia SFSR, Soviet Union. She is the only child of two former Soviet champion gymnasts: 1988 Summer Olympics double-gold medalist Valeri Liukin and 1987 World clubs champion in rhythmic gymnastics Anna Kotchneva. Her nickname Nastia is a Russian diminutive for Anastasia. The family immigrated to the United States when Nastia was two and a half years old, following the breakup of the Soviet Union, and settled first in New Orleans before moving to Texas. In 1994, Valeri Liukin teamed up with another former Soviet champion athlete, Yevgeny Marchenko, to open the World Olympic Gymnastics Academy (WOGA) in Plano, Texas.
Liukin is fluent in English and Russian. She graduated from Spring Creek Academy, located in Plano, Texas, in the spring of 2007. She enrolled as an international business major at Southern Methodist University in January 2008, and took a leave from classes to concentrate on preparations for the 2008 Olympic Games. She returned to campus in spring 2009, but her travel schedule and professional commitments caused her to withdraw before the end of the semester. In January 2013, Liukin attended New York University where she studied sports management and psychology, graduating in May 2016.
Nastia has been involved with numerous charities and philanthropy over the years including Cards for Hospitalized Kids, breast cancer awareness and more. Liukin also established the Nastia Liukin Fund with USA Gymnastics which helps support fitness oriented programs for young people.
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 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 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 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 was a member of the gold medal-winning U.S. team at the 2003 Pan American Games; she took second place in the all-around behind teammate Chellsie Memmel. She also won the all-around in the junior division of the 2004 Pacific Alliance Championships. She repeated as junior U.S. all-around champion in 2004. 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.
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 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.