Nastia Liukin
NBC is flipping out for more gymnastics: The network and cable partner Universal Sports have inked a deal with USA Gymnastics to carry the sport's biggest events through 2012, the Associated Press reports.
The pact secures the fifth major Olympic sport for NBC, which also has broadcast rights to key events in swimming, skating, track and skiing. The U.S. gymnastics championships, featuring ...
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Nastia Liukin by Amy Sussman/WireImage.com
Olympic gold medalist Nastia Liukin is an expert on the gymnastic mats, but she'll be flexing her acting muscles next. The gymnast is set to appear as herself in a "substantial" way on an episode of Gossip Girl later this fall, her agent, Evan Morgenstein, confirmed to TVGuide.com.Morgenstein explained that the story behind Liukin's guest role on the CW series was almost as exciting as her win in the all-around competition in Beijing. Gossip producers contacted the 18-year-old after hearing her tell Ryan Seacrest on his radio program that the show is her favorite. That night, producers ran into her at an L.A. restaurant and set up a meeting to talk shop. The next thing she knew, Liukin was set to shoot on location in New York, most likely in mid-October. Her scenes are currently in development.Gossip's Upper East Side is just the latest TV landing pad for recent Olympians. The Secret Life of the American Teenager got Liukin's teammate, Shawn Johnson, as a guest star for its mid-seas...
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Oprah Winfrey by Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage.com
For its 23rd (!) season premiere, The Oprah Winfrey Show will be paid a visit by more than 150 U.S. Olympic team members.The guest list includes gold medalists such as Michael Phelps (who has become about as omnipresent as Eddie Cibrian on ABC), Nastia Liukin, volleyball queens Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh, and hoops stars Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, Lisa Leslie and Dwayne Wade (who always cracked me up on A Different World).As reported by the AP, the episode tapes Wednesday at Chicago's Millennium Park (to air Sept. 8) and is fancied as a both a "welcome home celebration" for the athletes as well as a showcase for the Windy City, which is among the candidates to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. By noon Saturday, the line of Oprah and Olympic athlete fans hoping to nab one of the 2,000 free tickets up for grabs stretched several blocks. — Matt Mitovich
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Shawn Johnson by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images
The other night, NBC ran a cute piece toward the end of its prime-time broadcast—which means it probably aired somewhere around midnight—about how people are battling sleep deprivation thanks to how late we’re all staying up to watch the Olympics each night. Somehow I was awake to watch it—although someone in the office told me they saw the piece repurposed at another time, so who knows when I saw it; it’s all a blur.The point being that when big Olympics events are live, as they were the first week of the games with Michael Phelps’ awesome miniseries-like laps of swimming history and the team gymnastics competitions, there’s an undeniable thrill watching them unfold in real time, no matter how late it goes. (I groaned one night last week upon realizing the women’s gymnastics weren’t starting until 11:10 pm/ET, but I stayed glued until well past 1 in the morning. No regrets.)But this week it’s a different story, and it boils down to ...
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Shawn Johnson by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images
It came down to the last event of womens gymnastics but Shawn Johnson finally is an Olympic champion The West Des Moines Iowa teen had a stellar balance beam routine to win the event ahead of her teammate all-around champ Nastia Liukin 1622516025 She looks like a kid on the best of Christmas mornings Al Trautwig said of her magical smile at the medal ceremony Johnson was one of the biggest gold-medal hopes coming into Beijing so it was a disappointment to win only three silvers team individual and floor exercise While some might consider this gold to be huge redemption for the reigning world champion she says shes proud of all her medals I would never trade one of my silvers for gold What I went through to get them is very special to me and really touched my heartOn the other end of the scale American mens gymnast Jonathan Horton was considered something of an underdog But after leading the US to team bronze he capped his Games T
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Stephanie Brown Trafton by Nick Laham/Getty Images
A great night of performances in a variety of sports was tarnished Monday by some unattractive whining from the NBC gymnastics crew The controversial tie-breaker in the womens uneven bars certainly didnt seem to make sense but you have to wonder how much howling we would have heard if an American had come out top Chinas He Kexin and Nastia Liukin of the US had identical scores but a seemingly arbitrary formula gave the gold to He NBCs team Al Trautwig Elfie Schlegel and Tim Daggett took great issue with this and Trautwig even went so far as to question whether He felt she deserved the gold Back in the studio bellowing Bela Karolyi continued his ranting to Bob Costas who did his best to remain impartial I dont remember anyone questioning Paul Hamms all-around victory four years ago when a scoring error pushed his South Korean opponent back to silver The next event the mens vault also involved a tie-breaker one
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Nastia Liukin, Sandra Izbasa and Shawn Johnson by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images
Sandra Izbasa saved the best for last The final competitor on the floor exercise event final the Romanian strung together an effortless routine to unseat 2007 world floor champion Shawn Johnson from the leaderboard and deny her the gold medal that was oh-so close Johnson had the burden of going first posting a 15500 that withstood six gymnasts until Izbasa leaped past her with a 15650 at the last possible minute With second-place finishes in the team competition and all-around three-time world champion Johnson now has three Olympic silver medals She has one more shot at gold in the beam final on Tuesday Teammate and Olympic all-around champion Nastia Liukin earned bronze giving her a medal of every color and putting her one shy of matching her father Valeris haul in 1988Upset was the storyline in the womens finals Chinas Cheng Fei a three-time world champion on vault seemed like a shoo-in for gold until she shockingly landed on her knees on her second attempt That
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Shawn Johnson, Nastia Liukin and Yang Yillin by Jeff Gross/Getty Images Sport
Nastia Liuikin and Ryan Lochte are both world champion athletes who have long lived in the shadows of their more decorated teammates Thursday night Friday morning in Beijing they finally stepped out of the shadows on the worlds biggest stage Liukin captured the womens gymnastics individual all-around title over Shawn Johnson and Lochte upset defending Olympic champion Aaron Perisol in the 200-meter backstrokeThe Russian-bornTexas-raised Liukin was near flawless at the National Indoor Stadium compiling 63325 points in an event NBCs gymnastics narrator Al Trautwig called an individual medley of sorts that Michael Phelps cannot do Johnson the 2007 world champion had a few wobbles including another crossover step on her vault landing and collected 62725 points just edging out bronze-medalist Yang Lilin of China with 62650Because the event ended so late just before 1 amET NBC will air a special recap on Friday night during
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Shawn Johnson by Lluis Gene/AFP/Getty Images
Womens gymnastics one of the most popular events at any Olympics begins Sunday with the qualifying round featuring our first look at the two favored teams the United States and China Aug 10 7 pmET NBC The team finals air live on Tuesday Wednesday morning in Beijing during NBCs prime-time broadcast Aug 12 8 pmETIf their routines are as rock-solid as their confidence the Americans could be looking at the countrys second-ever team gold Id say we are the strongest team out there probably in history says 16-year-old Shawn Johnson the world all-around champion from West Des Moines Iowa What about the Magnificent Seven the team that captured gold at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics on Kerri Strugs bum ankle I think theyre very comparable says NBCs Tim Daggett Both groups had athletes that did things that nobody in the world was doing Led by Johnson and Nastia Liukin a Moscow-b
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