{"id":1314945,"date":"2019-09-23T23:08:01","date_gmt":"2019-09-24T05:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/nastia-liukin-flips-over-leap-into-us-olympic-hall-of-fame\/"},"modified":"2019-09-23T23:08:01","modified_gmt":"2019-09-24T05:08:01","slug":"nastia-liukin-flips-over-leap-into-us-olympic-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/nastia-liukin-flips-over-leap-into-us-olympic-hall-of-fame\/","title":{"rendered":"Nastia Liukin flips over leap into US Olympic Hall of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FILE – In this July 10, 2019, file photo, Nastia Liukin arrives at the ESPY Awards in Los Angeles. Liukin is part of the 2019 U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Hall of Fame class that will be inducted later this year. (Photo by Richard Shotwell\/Invision\/AP, File)<\/strong>
Richard Shotwell\/Invision\/AP | Invision<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

When she was a kid, Nastia Liukin watched the Olympics on TV and thought how cool it might be to one day meet some of America\u2019s greatest athletes.<\/p>\n

Then, she became one.<\/p>\n

Now, she\u2019ll be in the Hall of Fame with them.<\/p>\n

The champion gymnast and once-shunned track stars Tommie Smith and John Carlos were named Monday to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Hall of Fame\u2019s class of 2019, part of what many in the U.S. Olympic world view as overdue recognition for the sprinters and an overdue revival for the hall itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing back to the 8-year-old Nastia, I was the girl who wanted to do flips because it was fun,\u201d Liukin said. \u201cI never thought I\u2019d be sitting here today with this news.\u201d<\/p>\n

The USOPC will hold an induction ceremony on Nov. 1 in Colorado Springs, Colorado \u2014 the first since 2012.<\/p>\n

After the Hall of Fame essentially stalled out, USOPC Sarah Hirshland pushed to revive it as part of a federation effort to focus more on athletes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thank them for their impact on sport and society, and for continuing to inspire the next generation of athletes and fans,\u201d Hirshland said.<\/p>\n

The induction of Smith and Carlos is long overdue. After being kicked out of the 1968 Olympics for their iconic raised-fist protest on the medals stand, the sprinters were left on the sideline of the official U.S. Olympic movement. Their 2016 visit to the White House, along with USOPC leaders, marked the first official event they\u2019d been part of since their ouster in 1968.<\/p>\n

The rest of the class: Candace Cable, Erin Popovich, Chris Waddell (Paralympics), Lisa Leslie (basketball), Misty May-Treanor (beach volleyball), Apolo Anton Ohno (short track speedskating), Dara Torres (swimming), the 1998 U.S. Olympic Women\u2019s Ice Hockey Team), Ron O\u2019Brien (diving coach) and Tim Nugent (special contributor).<\/p>\n

Liukin, who will call gymnastics for NBC at next year\u2019s Olympics, founded an app called Grander that is designed to inspire and empower women in and out of sports.<\/p>\n

She stays in touch with her gold-medal-winning team from 2008, which included Shawn Johnson and Alicia Sacramone \u2014 and now she\u2019s the first of them to enter the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething like the Olympics, it\u2019s hard to quite put into words,\u201d Liukin said. \u201cThe pride and honor you feel representing Team USA, and to be able to do it with teammates, it\u2019s something you only dream of.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FILE – In this July 10, 2019, file photo, Nastia Liukin arrives at the ESPY Awards in Los Angeles. Liukin is part of the 2019 U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Hall of Fame class that will be inducted later this year. (Photo by Richard Shotwell\/Invision\/AP, File)Richard Shotwell\/Invision\/AP | Invision When she was a kid, Nastia Liukin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1314945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-27 21:52:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1314945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1314945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1314945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1314945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}