50 facts about Nastia Liukin: the 2008 Olympic individual all-around champion

50 things about life and career of Nastia Liukin.

1. Anastasia Valeryevna "Nastia" Liukin is a retired Russian-American artistic gymnast.

2. Nastia Liukin is the 2008 Olympic individual all-around champion, the 2005 and 2007 world champion on the balance beam, and the 2005 world champion on the uneven bars.

3. Nastia Liukin is also a four-time all-around U.S. national champion, winning twice as a junior and twice as a senior.

4. With nine World Championships medals, seven of them individual, Liukin is tied with Shannon Miller and Simone Biles for the second-highest tally of World Championship medals (among U.S. gymnasts).

5. Nastia Liukin also tied Miller's record as the American gymnast having won the most medals in a single non-boycotted Olympic Games.

6. Nastia Liukin was a key member of the U.S. senior team. She represented the United States at three World Championships and one Olympic Games.

7. In October 2011, Liukin announced that she was returning to gymnastics with the hopes of making a second Olympic team.

8. Nastia Liukin did not make the 2012 Olympic team, after several falls at the Olympic Trials and other pre-Olympic events, and retired from the sport in 2012.

9. Nastia Liukin was born on October 30, 1989, in Moscow, Russia SFSR, Soviet Union.

10. Nastia Liukin 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.

11. Nastia Liukin and her family are members of the Russian Orthodox church.

12. Her nickname Nastia is a Russian diminutive for Anastasia.

13. The family moved to the United States when Nastia was two and a half years old, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, and settled first in New Orleans before moving to Texas.

14. In 1994, Valeri Liukin teamed up with another former Soviet champion athlete, Evgeny Marchenko, to open the World Olympic Gymnastics Academy (WOGA) in Plano, Texas.

15. Nastia Liukin is fluent in English and Russian.

16. Nastia Liukin graduated from Spring Creek Academy, located in Plano, Texas, in the spring of 2007.

17. Nastia Liukin enrolled as a freshman 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.

18. Nastia Liukin returned to campus in spring 2009, but her travel schedule and professional commitments caused her to withdraw before the end of the semester.

19. Nastia's signature color is pink, hence her pink leotard worn during the 2008 Beijing Olympics all-around competition.

20. Liukin updates a blog on her official website and regularly posts on Twitter as @NastiaLiukin.

21. Nastia Liukin has a line of GK Elite leotards and grips and a line of pink gymnastics equipment from AAI.

22. People Magazine claimed that Liukin was in a relationship with American figure skater Evan Lysacek in a February 2010 article, but Lysacek denied the rumors in an interview with Entertainment Tonight, stating that the two were just "very close friends." On February 22, 2010, the two acknowledged they were dating when Liukin came to support Lysacek during his Olympic gold medal performance.

23. In January 2013, Liukin began college at New York University, where she is studying sports management and psychology.

24. On June 1, 2015, Nastia Liukin became engaged to her boyfriend, Matt Lombardi.

25. Nastia 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.

26. 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.

27. Nastia Liukin competed in her first National Championships as a junior in 2002, at the age of 12 and a half.

28. Nastia Liukin 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.

29. By 2003, Liukin was one of the strongest junior gymnasts in the United States.

30. Nastia Liukin 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.

31. Nastia 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.

32. Nastia Liukin also won the all-around in the junior division of the 2004 Pacific Alliance Championships.

33. 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.

34. In 2005, Liukin won her first senior National Championships and, once again, earned gold medals on the bars and beam.

35. At the 2005 World Championships in Melbourne, she finished second in the all-around behind teammate Chellsie Memmel with a score of 37.822.

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

37. In March 2006, Liukin placed first in the all-around at the American Cup.

38. 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. 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.

39. 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.

40. 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.

41. 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.

42. In addition, she was ranked third in the Associated Press' 2008 Female Athlete of the Year voting.

43. Outside of competitive gymnastics, Liukin had cameo roles in the April 2006 Touchstone Pictures film Stick It, a 2008 episode of Gossip Girl and a quick cameo appearance on the Bravo TV show NYC Prep.

44. She also appeared in the second season of Make It or Break It.

45. Nastia Liukin was on The Tour of Gymnastics Superstars, which was broadcast nationwide on MyNetworkTV.

46. On February 24, 2015, Liukin was announced as one of the celebrities who would compete on the 20th season of Dancing with the Stars. She was partnered with professional dancer and five-time champion Derek Hough. They made it to week 9 (the semi-finals), but were then eliminated on May 12, 2015, despite receiving the highest scores of that week and consistently earning high scores throughout the season.

47. On May 4, 2015, Liukin was announced as the grand marshal for the 99th Indianapolis 500.

48. Liukin serves as an analyst for NBC Sports Group during their coverage of gymnastics events and was a contributor for NBCOlympics.com during the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London.

49. Liukin has her own line of gymnastics equipment, which includes mats, bars and balance beams in her signature pink, produced by American Athletic, Inc.

50. The Nastia Liukin Cup is an annual gymnastics competition held in the United States that is hosted by Liukin. The inaugural edition was contested in 2010. The competition is open to Level 10 gymnasts, who can only qualify to the event at designated invitationals across the country.

Source: Wikipedia.org