My Olympic Gold Medal Reaction | Nastia Liukin

hey guys it's nastia welcome back to my channel and today we have a very very special guest my dad's official youtube debut um we took a lot of convincing um but we thought it would be kind of cool to go back to beijing and re-watch my olympic routines and react to them so this is going to be a reaction video of my olympic routines so first of all i don't we've i don't think we've ever really watched we've watched like my routine sometimes but like we've never fully talked about the routines and also for me what you were thinking yeah finally 12 years later 12 years later um all right so we're going to start with the vault um i would have to say this was the best ball of my entire life yeah also the scariest world of your entire life because you know how dangerous this is yeah to try to stick one and a half we've got some examples that people been try to stick the blind landing yeah how they end up so that was but i do remember we'll watch it here in a second or i guess we'll watch it and then we'll um right before i remember in my warm-up you said i took one step on my landing and you said do the exact same thing but try to stick it and then you said you regretted kind of saying that big time big time because i remember that when you were younger gymnast i ask you the same thing on the floor exercise do you remember that two and a half and what happened you land right on your bum yeah um and that's kind of what happens obviously like the gymnasts or gymnastics fans that are watching you kind of know when it is a blind landing it's really really hard to stick and if you're trying to stick things can go really wrong um but in my mind like as soon as he said that i had this dream and i'll do a separate youtube video about this one day but basically i had a dream the night before the olympics that i like visualized my entire competition and in my dream i stuck my landing so when he said that it was almost like wait he must know about obviously he did not but yes when he said to stick it i think like inside i kind of laughed because i was like well duh that's what's gonna happen so okay let's watch it um but i was nervous obviously um nervous but confident i think especially on your first event you want to like start off right a decent not excellent it's so scary yeah but i mean as soon as that happened were you thinking like okay this is gonna be a good day or were you like like what did you think as soon as that happened well there's two events that i was very nervous about this because you have to do excellent in order to be competitive right and the bars if you don't do bars it's over it's over and that yeah and obviously well yeah i mean i was i think most nervous for bars and that's which is the next event but for us it was always like as you said like if you do not and not just like make your bar team like it has to be really good because that's where we had an advantage that's what the plan was yeah you were behind about a point on the vault last year but what was the plan a few years back you make it up point and a half on the bars yeah and that's why this is the event coming up is the most important for you so obviously the code has changed a little bit but i remember when you gave me a piece of paper and it was literally like this bar routine first of all i couldn't even do half the skills i think and it was like i just remember like kind of looking at it and at the very bottom it said 7.7 which was my start value and at the time even having like a 7-0 start value was like whoa and then i don't even know if i had that yet i might have been able to do a bargain with like a 7-1 or something i believe so somewhere in that area but 7-7 was like unheard of at the time well but well you have to be a little bit bold yeah you have yeah otherwise why no chance why you know you i know your dreams and you obviously know my thoughts on it but uh yeah this is this is so critical and of course by that time in that time actually last year i knew every single gymnast in the top five i believe five or seven every start value and all the scores basically and all around so that's the it wasn't just throw up throw the number right just must do yeah but how did you come up with was that like how did you come up with that well it took a little bit but but again i'm not gonna say that you don't know these skills and as you mentioned that you have that you didn't know when you were little we we've done our homework as i always always preaching in gymnastics you have to do your homework you completed those skills those healies if you remember let me finish up in the uh yeah and that's close to the movement's the same but it's doing it in front of them and that took at least a year to at least just get it i remember a lot of people always ask me like what was the hardest skill for you to learn first of all anything on fault obviously and an oh no because it was a skill that it's not just like adding another half twist or half turn to a skill it was like something completely different and i think at the beginning i'm a very visual person and a visual learner so if i'm able to like watch it or visualize myself doing it and like you feel it i was like that skill like it was every other time i'd fall like on top of the bar or like and obviously we started doing it at the pit and was fun all that but i remember being so frustrated thinking how am i going to learn this skill and i had it in my routine twice the second one with another half turn and then you know it was like this whole combination long story short we did it um and but yes so let's watch my bar team um as you said for me this was the routine i was most nervous about because if i had even a slight mistake it was over well slight mistake you might you know but it the truth is this is exactly how we end up yeah our plan was you making up another half a tenth you remember your around how much you want yeah but six tenths right so that tells you our plan yeah came to perfection yeah it worked um okay and then also what makes me nervous is at a competition like worlds or the olympics is you wait for the green light to come on so basically when the judges you're like taking a deep breath because it's like i feel like the nerves because you don't know when the judges are going to be ready for you to go obviously and when the green light comes on you have 30 seconds to mount the apparatus or else you get a zero that being said in the all-around when someone goes before you they could like the bars a completely different way like they take all the chalk off there might be honey water like whatever on and your coach literally has sometimes a minute sometimes but like you know you don't really know when that just judges are going to be ready so it's a lot of pressure on the coach too to get the bars right um the the balance of the bars that's right everything and i remember actually in this competition they were still a little it obviously it wasn't your fault the judges were ready so fast that the green light came on i remember you were still moving and i started getting like anxious and nervous because i was like okay 30 seconds and then you're obviously thinking about your routine so yeah okay so we'll watch this so obviously you're allowed to be standing on the podium um especially for a release move so this first skill this is kind of like where it starts the combination so it's the first oh no pretty good yeah also pretty good and then oh no and a half little short ginger was good i struggled a little bit with my oh the sorry wrong part to catch it first it's pretty long routine yeah it was long i was a little far on that but do you remember we had some problems yeah kind of like this actually a little anxious yeah and the dismount obviously so a pretty big step on that landing but i think as soon as i finished that routine i was relieved i was like thank god and and you know i think a lot of people are like oh but beam is next i don't know like yes it's four inches wide it's nerve-racking but well i mean you gave yourself a chance yeah this is it right here the rest of it just has to be normal there is not too much stress but that this is the event where you have to shine basically yeah there's no other ways yeah i had to do it this happened and after that i actually wasn't so much nervous on the beam anymore i wasn't nervous like at all which is so crazy because i think it all came down to the train the preparation and the training that we put into it right like we were i was most prepared in that on this day in that moment and and that's what you kind of always said was like it's all about the preparation and the training and um so i was confident not in like a sense of uh confidence of like being the best but just confident in yourself and your routine and your skills in my beam routine i had been doing you know all those skills for a long time you were very confident yeah and comfortable on the beam those skills you've done forever since you were little really and there was again there was another that was a plan do not go too crazy on this event just be consistent be normal do your normal routine because your body is built that way right now if you do normally you will get your thing done yeah i will get you scored that was it once again the bars that's what makes me nervous because it was physical and you're obviously not the strongest gymnast in the national team at that time so that should be easy for you yeah and then i think yeah and i'm being i saw his last step on beam which i hated going last just be i always like to like warm up go first get it over with be done but i was used to being towards the end on bars and beam in like a team lineup for instance so and it's out of your control like when you're going obviously so i think the hardest part was just the waiting for it to be my turn exactly and like staying mentally that's why i get actually nervous when you've been you've been too cool over there i was sitting on the floor normally it never happened i know i actually would come to you and they tell me to like you tell me to keep moving i didn't want to you know get get too much into you i mean you old gymnast by that time you know so you knew what you were doing but at the same time that's my job to make it better so that's the only part that was a little nervous because you're the last one and you you when you're too much in yourself i was a little nervous in there you see you've been sitting a little bit yeah you're like okay come on let's get up and start moving and i was like okay it's not very good for being more yeah i think at least but anyways okay so um here we go beam routine so like every other event um bars is a little bit more like rapid and fast but i think for beam it was it was truly just you know you always had told me little little bitty things and corrections or just not even corrections but things to say um and so that was always what i was remembering like you know on connections make sure to like keep keep it moving um yeah i mean that's important uh and you remember i always talk to you on the practice my mom always say i always say something that's what i talk to my coaches right now you know you talk to the gymnast before they go to the skill not after because that's kind of too late and that's what makes you think correct when you go for the skill right and i mean technically to me this is good yeah especially for this big event yeah i mean everything's pretty decent you're very calm and fluidity is another thing that tells me when you go with the rhythm it's flowing you're not trying to make a skill you try to make a routine yeah yes and that gives me confidence okay pause the dismount um so flashback 2007 world so a year before this um i had never been nervous about dismounts really ever uh until that year and i know everyone always says like you can't think about the last time or like you can't think like what if but since then so anyways i missed my foot on abysmal and do just a round of talk not good um but i think this was always just i just don't like dismounts i never really did but this was kind of the moment of also again sticking trying to stick that landing and being obviously for a reason we always did this yeah for your ankles to save right but yeah pretty good this is tells me that you have a very decent shape yeah when you start sticking your uh landings like this blind landings whatever we say that it's it proves the point that you are ready to you moving forward with you very confident yeah okay well first of all you see you're saying calm down because i was like after so i'm like putting my backpack on i was last on beam and then we had to immediately go to floor and at that moment in my mind it's impossible to not think you could win the olympics in literally a few minutes you have one more routine left but that was exactly what i was trying not to think of just one more routine like go do it and we move on to floor so unfortunately this video doesn't have it um but we're gonna find it because that was quite a floor what basically well we have the floor team but the warm-up what basically happened was and a lot of people didn't see it i don't know what coverage showed it but and you saw right after my beam routine he said calm down well that's he knew what he was saying because clearly i was not calm we moved on we click like quickly got on the podium and started warming up and the first swimming pass that i warm up is my i guess essentially one of the easier ones but back one and a half to a front one and a half so just a combination pass and i crashed like landed like this on the floor and like quickly just like got up and like might woke up yeah and i was like whoa okay and then literally you just went like you went like this and i was just like okay calm down take a break this is exactly what close the point that you're not here yet yeah because that's the easiest past for you and you just crush that so i mean yeah yeah did you obviously that was like a whoa moment for both of us but were you now were you now more nervous for my floor routine when that happened oh i'm glad that i did that in the warm up it's not that i was nervous because this is the last floor routine and that two and a half when you were little um oh yeah all these years my last back of my mind interesting i never thought of that that's the only thing i was worried about honestly but of course i did not tell you a lot of things oh yeah or of course what i'm thinking about but that floor thing oh yeah yeah that was difficult for me to watch although this is i have to say not easiest event but technically you will prepare it i mean for the last maybe even three or four months you only have maybe three mistakes yeah do you remember we were talking about this you that was already easy for you yeah once after olympic trials from olympic trials essentially to the olympics yes you would not yeah you will not break in yeah i think the one thing and i think all of us really once we got to vision i don't know if it was because it was the podium or something we were all going out of bounds a lot um like every single one of us like i think in the team in prelims and team finals at least all of us went out one at least one time um so really all i thought of was not i wasn't even and you kind of taught me this you know obviously when you were competing it wasn't it was like a confidence thing in the sense of don't worry or don't question if you're going to make it or not question like think about like how how great you're going to make it in the sense of you know don't be scared to fall because once you start thinking am i going to fall and fall i'm scared to fall that's normally when that happens or a mistake it was more so okay how do i stick this landing like what do i need to do in order to make this the best pass skill routine and so that's kind of what i was thinking before my 14 um good job learned learned apparently from the best you know what we did on the day of the same thing yeah it's not that we are working on the routines naked they remember before the olympics would be working if more than two wobbles we didn't count routines right we did not talk about falls at all yeah we're talking about wobbles yeah so that's essentially the same thing on the floor right so you were thinking that way on the floor we're not perfectionist at all or anything um but i mean that's obviously what it has to come down to this is how you win but on floor especially i remember thinking just honestly i i only was thinking about just stay in bounds and and even though like stepping out of bounds isn't like life or death but it kind of helped me focus on like the little smaller details and not think like oh my gosh you're 90 seconds away from yeah you know what i was thinking i still remember to this day when i competed on the highway the whole routine because that was your last event not going to make a step yeah because back then there was 10 00 points right yeah that's the only thing not the releases not the handstands not to make a step on the landing because that will do it for you yeah that's exactly i guess you won the great shape when you're thinking about that not to not not to make a routine but not nothing yeah well and i think that's you know why like we were so physically prepared the gymnastics and a lot of people always ask about the mental aspect to it and it's like at this given point yes of course it's physical but we had put in all the training and the numbers and everything and it comes down a lot to the mental side of it right of like the amount of pressure and it wasn't even like pressure from any other people i get asked this a lot it was just like me wanting to do my best it wasn't like oh i'm i feel pressure from someone you know whatever to live up to something it was literally like me wanting to do my best so anyways 14. and the commentator my colleagues now um i remember um right before it was like they said this is it um this could be a routine of a lifetime and it was sizeless sure is once again three out of four passes the blind lane yeah starting at the first stage when you try to stick this i stayed in balance and especially when you he's staying balanced yeah and then this my double front was was never really loved flipping i loved twisting more but as soon as i got through the second pass yeah i kind of took a breath but then obviously the third pass is the one i crashed on in warm-ups i wasn't even thinking about it or wasn't nervous um i just remember but you see you and then you see you in the corner being like you kidding me you're about 30 seconds away yeah being an olympic champion or not yeah yeah that wasn't it it was like absolutely straight yeah but stayed in bounce um and then there's a moment coming up so like after i do oh and then my double turn obviously was like we had to make sure that you get that um all the way around like it was it was decent you you had no i see a head nod um and then right after this leave i look i have a pose and that's where i think i got about 10 years older these couple seconds right yeah but smart you do not i didn't i had space to like go a little forward and i never really stepped out of bounds on that path so i just um i knew that it was yeah yeah in my mind actually i thought this is it this is gonna do it but you also never know it's like you have to you know wait for the scores to come up i wasn't last a few more people to go and um i think in that moment though was really we did everything we could there was no regrets and i and i remember that's the best competition you ever done so this is just and i remember the year once the year turned 2008 it was you know we talked about that and we kind of both said no matter what happens let's not have any regrets kind of and yeah we and i think now and i i feel like what's cool to watch you know now and kind of being in a different position is as athletes you're obviously extremely nervous as coaches and then add on a parent role it's probably times a hundred me now watching even you know i commentate now or just watching my friends you don't have control you don't know what's going on in someone's mind so no matter how prepared you might be it's still like nerve-wracking it is it isn't special at this competition and especially sometimes they say oh she's so talented it's not so bad it's not so no this is put a lot more pressure on the coach why i tell you why because if the very talented gymnast at least that's what in my mind yeah it is the talented gymnasts do not deliver it's the coaches yeah i cannot you know to hear the results with the diamond in my hands especially my daughter just imagine what i felt but of course he did not know that and now that you're old enough to understand and you see all that the other side of the metal as we say you know they just well i've always thought yeah i've always said it was so funny because i never felt that pressure especially from you know people are all a lot of different sides but people are always like oh don't you feel pressure to live up to like what your parents did and as a young girl like are you kidding no i thought it was the coolest thing then it was the olympic year and like at nationals and trials i remember all of a sudden people are like okay like now don't you feel pressured to like achieve what they did and i was like no i never have so stop putting it in my head um but then i obviously started thinking about it and um so yeah i felt not necessarily pressure to live up to that it was like pressure that i was like i always wanted to achieve those things too right so it was more so that not necessarily i had to achieve these things but yeah understanding you know for you that kind of pressure like well yeah and obviously i knew you and some people would probably think oh you've been pushed too hard it's it's we we your mom and i we follow your dream basically and that's what it takes to become the greatest yeah you know to do this much yeah and follow that path because i actually i already done this yes yeah and uh i know what it takes not losing all round by white 110. well you actually know that too yeah so you know what it is and you know every little bit counts especially at this level because everybody is so good mm-hmm and i believe top five oh yeah it was like one of the greatest yeah it was one of the greatest all-around competitions it was yeah nobody had breaks nobody had mistakes it was tough yeah it was tough and there was so much fun actually yeah to win but nobody had mistakes that's when it's best obviously not when like you just win by yeah makes you look good you're ready you did that yeah anyways uh that was fun to kind of go back in time so uh lots of nerves but also obviously just so exciting when you put in a lot of work together and your dreams come true so thanks for watching thanks for having your youtube debut on my new channel um and we have some other fun stuff planned so make sure you guys stay tuned and subscribe and see you next time

Channel: Nastia Liukin

Views: 285,365

Rating: 4.9594917 out of 5

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Id: h3QqkyRYeo0

Length: 29min 2sec (1742 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 11 2020