Team USA Women's Gymnast Nastia Liukin Leaves 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics With 5 Gymnastics Medals | iHaveNet

Nastia Liukin earned her fifth Olympic medal, a silver medal in the balance beam final, on August 19 at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.

Nastia's most impressive victory was in the much coveted women's individual all-around gold medal. She barely beat fellow American Shawn Johnson by 0.6 points.

Liukin finished the Individual All-Around with 63.325 points, Johnson 62.725 points while Yang Yilin of China finished a close third (62.650 points) to earn a bronze medal.

In addition to the Women's Individual All-Around Olympic gold medal, Nastia medaled in the Women's Team All-Around competition (USA - Silver); Women's Individual Floor Exercise (Bronze); Women's Balance Beam (Silver); and the Women's Individual Uneven Bars (Silver).

In the Uneven Bars China's He Kexin was awarded the gold even though Nastia's and He's scores were indentical at 16.725.

Under the new scoring format in gymnastics the diffulty rating and execution score are added together to come up with a final score.

Both had a difficulty rating of 7.7 and executed a score of 9.025.

At the same time, gymnastics was the only sport at the Olympics this summer that decided not to grant ties. Under equally as new rules, the Uneven Bars were decided by a multi-tiered tiebreaker. The tiebreaker rules were applied correctly and He Kexin was awarded the gold.

NBC Gymnastic Analyst Tim Dagget on the questionable judging and the tie.

    - "What it comes down to Bob (Costas), is that the people on the floor (judges) have to follow the rules."

    - "I think that they dropped the ball on this one (the judges)."

    - "It's a very convoluted process."

    - "This is not about one country versus another, the Chinese have been fabulous, it's about one routine versus another, and I thought that the one girl wearing the red, white, and blue was definitely better today."

    - "It should not have gotten to that point (a tiebreaker)."

    - "The problem is you end up with judges that aren't that experienced."

    - "The one that really jumps out at me is the Australian judge that took a full point from Nastia Liukin and only .07 for He Kexin."

Bela Karoyli to Bob Costas on NBC commenting on the confusion over gymnastics scoring and judging throughout the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics: "This is adding to the already brewing controversy and frustration in the heart of the athletes including the viewers."

Nastia Liukin's performance in terms of quantity equals Shannon Miller's record medal haul of 5, who won 2 silver and 3 bronze medals at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and also means that Nastia now has one more Olympic medal than her father Valeri.

Her father, Valeri Liukin, won four medals at the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics (including two gold medals) as a member of the Soviet Union's Men's Gymnastics team. Twenty years later, Nastia return 5 medals to their new home in the United States.

Summer Olympics - American Gymnast Nastia Liukin Leaves 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics With 5 Medals

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