Nastia-Liukin-Fans

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Nastia and her teammates overcame a late injury to Samantha Peszek in their warm up to finish second as a team and move into Wednesday's team final following the qualification round held in Beijing today. Peszek was expected to compete on four events but injured her knee during the final warm up and was limited to only uneven bars. This meant that the US girls were only able to compete four athletes on vault, balance beam and floor exercise. Despite this late setback, the team earned the highest team totals on vault and balance beam.

Nastia competed on all four events and despite a fall on her uneven bars dismount posted the second highest all around total (62.375), less than 0.35 behind teammate Shawn Johnson. Her best scores came on balance beam (15.975 / 6.6 A Score) and uneven bars (15.950 / 7.7 A Score) however she also earned impressive scores on vault (15.100 / 5.5 A Score) - including a 9.8 from one B panel judge - and floor exercise (15.350 / 6.2 A Score). In addition to the Team Final, Nastia's performance individually qualified her to All Around, Uneven Bars, Balance Beam and Floor Exercise finals. She joins Cheng Fei (CHN) and Anna Pavlova (RUS) as the only athletes to qualify to three individual event finals. Click HERE to access full results from the preliminary round. Congratulations Nastia and Team USA! Nastia and her teammates will next compete in the Team Final on Wednesday at 11.00am!

Nastia and her teammates will make their first competition appearance at the Olympic Games tommorrow when they compete in the Qualification Round from which teams and individuals will attempt to qualify into the finals. The US women are scheduled to compete in Subdivision 2 commencing at 1:30pm in Beijing and will begin their campaign on floor exercise. Good luck to Nastia and the US girls!

The team performed well in official podium training on Thursday and, as expected, look poised to be in a the gold medal fight with the team from China. Nastia will compete on all four events and will anchor the team in uneven bars. Interested fans should note that NBCOlympics.com provided a unique insight in the gymnastics events by streaming live action from podium training. An archive of Team USA's Podium Training session can be viewed on NBCOympics.com for those who missed the live feed. We have added photographs from Podium Training as well as the team's first press conference also held on Thursday.

In other news, Nastia has supported the Dallas Morning News Charities throughout 2008. The Charities help people who find themselves in need of everything from a hot meal and a warm bed to job training skills. They recently launched a number of auctions through ebay.com for autographed merchandise donated by Nastia to support their work. Currently available is an US National Team Leotard and a poster from International Gymnast both personally autography by Nastia. Show your support for the work of the Dallas Morning News charities and make a bid to win one of these fantastic collectors items! Look out for more items to be added during the Olympics. For more information about Dallas Morning News Charities, please visit their website.

Lastly Nastia will be appearing in The World Tour of Gymnastics Champions following the Olympic Games. Tickets for the tour are already available. Be sure to visit the website and book your seats now!

World beam champion 2007!

Congratulations Nastia - 2007 World Balance Beam Champion. Nastia won her 9th World Championships medal in Stuttgart with a near flawless performance in the balance beam final. Drawn to compete last in the final Nastia had a small balance check on her flight series but was solid for the rest of her routine to earn a 16.025 / 6.6 A Score finishing ahead of China's Li Shanshan and Romania's Steliana Nistor who shared the silver medal (15.900). Following the competition Nastia told reporters, "I wanted to go out there and show I can make a good beam routine and be on top of the world ... Being the team world champion is great, don’t get me wrong. But individually, it’s something just totally different from a team medal. Being able to be named a world champion individually, it’s such a great honor."

Congratulations to Nastia's teammates who also earned medals during event finals. Alicia Sacramone won a bronze medal on vault and a silver medal on floor exercise while Shawn Johnson won the gold medal on floor exercise. Click HERE to access full results from Day 2 of Event Finals. Congratulations to Nastia and the entire US team for a great World Championship campaign!

This performance also means that Nastia has joined Shannon Miller as America's most decorated gymnast in World Championship competition. Nastia has earned four gold medals and five silver medals from her three World Championship appearances to date. Miller earned five gold medals, three silver medals and one bronze medal from her five World Championship appearances.

Nastia and her teammates are at the Karolyi Ranch outside of Houston preparing for the World Championships. The team will depart for Germany later this week with Podium Training for the competition commencing on 28 August.

Bronze in San Jose / Stuttgart Bound

Congratulations Nastia - 2007 National Uneven Bars Champion.

Competition at the VISA Championships concluded yesterday with the Junior and Senior Women's finals being contested. Nastia improved her score from preliminaries by almost half a point to move up the all around rankings by two places and win the bronze medal. She also won two individual event medals, gold on the uneven bars (16.200 / 7.1 A Score) and silver on the balance beam (16.000 / 6.5 A Score). Unfortunately she counted major errors on both vault and floor exercise admitting that she hasn't really had the time to train the required numbers to gain enough strength and consistency on these events for Championships. Shawn Johnson was the only gymnast to hit 8 for 8 in the competition and comfortably won her first National title. Shayla Worley staged an impressive finals performance to join Nastia in moving up the leaderboard to win silver. In the junior event Nastia's teammate Rebecca Bross won the all around and three event titles in an extremely dominant performance! WOGA's other competing athletes, Christa Tanella and Catherine Nguyen, finished 12th and 15th respectively. Congratulations Nastia and all of the WOGA girls! NBC will air coverage from Finals today. Check your local listings for broadcast times.

Following the competition USAG announced their seven member squad for the upcoming World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany. Nastia was selected alongside Shawn Johnson, Shayla Worley, Alicia Sacramone, Ivana Hong, Bridget Sloan and Sam Peszek. The alternate for the team will not be announced until after podium training in Germany. Nastia and her teammates will make final preparations for the competition at the Karolyi Ranch with competition in Stuttgart getting underway on September 1.

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