![]() Were she not so obviously the girl-next-door that America seeks every four years, she might seem eerily efficient, her body lines always straight as a fireplace poker, her expression implacable. Which she does, with unearthly consistency. “I would stack my toys and jump off of them.” Even today, she says, “I like being able to go to the gym and play and do crazy stuff.” ![]() “I had way too much energy,” Johnson says. In practices, while teammates wait for their turn to vault or work on the floor, Johnson runs in place or latches onto a pull-up bar fastened to the wall and pikes her feet over her head a half-dozen times.Īt 16, she is the same girl she was at 3, when her parents took her to a Des Moines, Iowa, gym, because they didn’t know what else to do with her. She is TNT in a leotard, her vaults and floor routines fizzing like an electric current. Johnson, by contrast, is the image that Americans have come to expect in their female gymnasts: tiny, smiling, and with enough power to blow the roof off the gym. “There were gorgeous gymnasts like Khorkina,” says Valeri. On her floor routine, too, one of her passes involves a combination of flips and twists that no other competitor can do, Valeri says. It is tied for the highest degree of difficulty of any routine in the world, linking together changing handholds and releases in a thread of breathtaking technical artistry. In Nastia’s uneven bars routine, in particular, it is evident that she is her father’s daughter. “Some of the stuff did on high bar was just amazing,” says Mazeika. Though he enjoyed far more success than someone like American Alexander Artemev, US men’s coach Kevin Mazeika compares the two as among the most innovative gymnasts of their generations. Valeri could be forgiven for thinking he knows something about becoming an elite gymnast. Nastia says, embarrassed: “He was like, ‘Can I bring my daughter’ ” to training camp? ![]() They moved to Dallas when Nastia was 2, and 10 years later, Valeri was calling national-team coach Martha Karolyi. Her father is Valeri Liukin, winner of four medals in the 1988 Seoul Games, and her mother is Anna Kotchneva, a world champion rhythmic gymnast – both from Russia. Yet for Johnson and Liukin, the paths that led to a shared bedroom in Beijing began in dramatically different worlds. Since Johnson and Liukin are superior all-around gymnasts – each excels on three of the four apparatuses – the need for strength in depth is less than for other teams. The scoring system in the finals, in which only three girls compete on each apparatus, could help the US. ![]() Last-minute injuries to Chellsie Memmel and Samantha Peszek here in Beijing have shaken the US team, but it still came through Sunday’s qualification round ranked No. The gold medal for Wednesday’s team event (which airs Tuesday night in the United States) appears almost certain to be headed to one of the two countries, with America shading China for gold at last year’s World Championships. She is the Russian-born gymnast of Russian gymnasts, and heir to the mantle of the Eastern European style that embodies grace in every impeccably pointed toe.īut today, she and Johnson – athletic opposites and possibly the best two female gymnasts in the world – are Olympic roommates and will lead the United States women into America’s first clear medal clash with host China. While Shawn Johnson seems a Mary Lou Retton reborn, bursting with pace and power, Liukin glides, her long lines tracing filigree patterns through the air. Nastia Liukin looks for all the world as if she is in the wrong uniform. ![]()
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