Sports Club: Nastia Liukin

Anastasia Valeryevna "Nastia" Lyukina (Russian: Анастасия "Настя" Валерьевна Люкина; born October 30, 1989) is a Russian-American artistic gymnast. She 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. With nine World Championships medals, seven of them individual, Liukin is tied with Shannon Miller and Alicia Sacramone as the American gymnasts having won the most World Championship medals. Liukin has also tied Miller's record as the American gymnast having won the most medals in a single non-boycotted Olympic Games. The daughter of two former Soviet champion gymnasts, Olympic gold medalist Valeri Liukin – the first man to do a triple backflip – and World Champion rhythmic gymnast Anna Kotchneva, Nastia Liukin was born in Moscow and moved to the United States as a young child. She began gymnastics after spending time in the gym while her parents coached. Liukin is coached by her father at the World Olympic Gymnastics Academy, her family's gymnastics club in Plano, Texas. Liukin became a member of the U.S. junior national team when she was 12 years old and won the National all-around title at the age of 13. She was the all-around silver medalist at the 2003 Pan American Games. Since 2005, Liukin has been a key member of the U.S. senior team. She is a four-time all-around U.S. National Champion, winning twice as a junior and twice as a senior. She has been the U.S. senior National Champion on the uneven bars since 2005. Liukin has represented the United States at three World Championships, the 2003 and 2007 Pan American Games, and the 2006 and 2008 Pacific Rim Championships.

Liukin began gymnastics at the age of three because she was "always hanging around in the gym"[16] 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 has her own line of gymnastics equipment, which includes mats and balance beams in her signature pink, produced by American Athletic, Inc. Liukin's corporate sponsors include Visa, AT&T, GK Elite Sportswear and Longines. She appeared in an Adidas commercial with Nadia Comăneci which ran during the 2004 Olympics and a 2008 commercial for Visa Inc. She signed an endorsement deal on March 15, 2010 and appears in commercials for Subway After the Beijing Olympics, she was signed to be one of two American Olympians featured on Wheaties cereal boxes. Liukin has expressed interest in the fashion world; she has served as a Longines Sports Ambassador of Elegance since 2006 and, along with her teammates Shawn Johnson and Alicia Sacramone, was one of the first female athletes ever to be signed as CoverGirl spokesmodels. She also collaborated with Vanilla Star Jeans to create a junior girls' clothing line and has modeled for Max Azria. In June 2010, she launched a line of girls' wear called Supergirl by Nastia for department store chain JC Penney. In October 2008, Liukin partnered with World Vision to help her home state of Texas to recover from Hurricane Ike.