Gymnastics · 2008 · Beijing, China
Five Medals, One Golden Beijing
An American gymnast wins the Olympic all-around title and matches a national record for medals won at a single Games, all inside one week in Beijing.
63.325 (gold)
All-around score
5 (1G, 3S, 1B)
Total medals, Beijing 2008
16.900 (team uneven bars)
Highest score of the Games
Nastia Liukin went into the 2008 Beijing all-around final as one of two leading American contenders alongside training partner and reigning world champion Shawn Johnson. Liukin produced clean routines across all four apparatus on 15 August to win the all-around gold, edging Johnson into silver and becoming the third American woman to win the Olympic all-around title, after Mary Lou Retton in 1984 and Carly Patterson in 2004.
It was one medal among five for Liukin at those Games: gold in the all-around, silver with the team, and silver on both the uneven bars and balance beam, with bronze on floor exercise completing the set. The tally tied Retton's and Shannon Miller's earlier records for the most gymnastics medals won by an American at a single Olympics.
Her uneven bars routine in the team final was scored 16.900, the highest mark awarded in the entire Olympic gymnastics competition that year, underlining a Games in which Liukin was consistently the most complete gymnast in the building, not just the eventual all-around champion.
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