Nastia Liukin was born as Anastasia Valeryevna Liukin and on Oct 30th this year, she will turn 21. She comes from Moscow, Russia but currently resides in Dallas, Texas and represents her new country in gymnastics. She has 9 World Champs medals under her belt out of which 7 are for her own performance. Athletics and gymnastics run in her blood as both of her parents were top in their days in late eighties.
She’s been on the court since she was a kid, but it’s only when she was just before her teen years that she won a title nationally. Her latest international win saw her take the 1st place in Beijing Olympics in Women All Around Gymnastics category. Her popularity and representing her country saw her popularity rise in other areas and not just sport.
She was in Stick It (’06) as well as Gossip Girl (’08) and was a guest at Oprah Winfrey Show and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Visa, AT&T, Longines and Adidas support her career and CoverGirl thought that she would be a beautiful young blonde to wear their makeup. Max Azaria helped her in designing and releasing clothes made for tweens. Sports Illustrated and Parade featured her in their magazines in ’08.
Being at the top also sees her having her own sports clothes and work out equipment from GK Gymnastics and AAI respectively. She was also heavily involved with World Vision to clean up the aftermath of Hurricane Ike that saw Texas ravaged couple of years ago.
On a personal front Nastia Liukin speaks two languages, her native mother tongue and English. She has her own official website as well as profile on Twitter that she updates. Her parents are the ones that coach her. There was a gossip around that she was dating Evan Lysacek but this was never affirmed.