UPDATE: Parker gymnast Nastia Liukin takes all-around gold in Beijing

by PegNews wire

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With the all-around competition on Thursday* night and the individuals to follow, Liukin has a number of golden opportunities.

Nastia Liukin may have been born in Russia, but she and her gold-medalist father and mother eventually made their way to North Texas. Now a silver-medalist gold-medalist in her own right, Nastia lives in Parker and trains at the World Olympic Gymnastics Academy (WOGA) in Plano.

On Tuesday*, the U.S. Women's Gymnastics team lost to China with a number of late, costly mistakes on the balance beam and floor. While Shawn Johnson was favored to win Thursday's all-around, many critics put Nastia Liukin right up there with her. If all the crazy falls and elementary mistakes in the men's all-round taught us anything, there was a good chance the Plano-native would find her path to gold. In March, in fact, Liukin took the American Cup from Johnson, who faltered when trying out a new vault.

UPDATE: As it happens, Liukin did take the gold, winning over teammate Johnson by six-tenths of a point. Her opening vault received a fairly low score, despite a stuck landing, which left her out of the top three. However, she had impeccable uneven bars and balance beam performances, and finished with her strongest marks thus far in the floor exercise to win the all around competition.

Liukin will attend Southern Methodist University in the Fall and plans to study international business. Study business at SMU? Shocking, I know.

*When broadcast live in the U.S.

Posted by Erin

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