Nastia Liukin wins again: Sportswoman of the Year

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Nastia Liukin won the Women’s Sports Foundation’s 2008 Sportswoman of the Year Award on Tuesday, making her, in at least one way, the ‘next Mary Lou.’ Mary Lou Retton had been the last gymnast to be so honored and the sport has been on a quest since 1984 to find the next Retton, a perky pixie who could have cross-over appeal for advertisers especially, but also for sports fans.

Jessica Mendoza of Camarillo, who was a part of the silver-medal U.S. Olympic softball team, was named Sportswoman of the Year for team athletes at the dinner in New York at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel

Liukin won five Olympic gymnastics medals in Beijing including the most important -- the all-around gold medal. In winning, Liukin not only beat the tiny Chinese contingent that set the world wondering exactly how old they were but also her favored teammate, Shawn Johnson, who won all-around silver and settled for gold only on the balance beam on the last night of competition.

Johnson was the defending world champion and the favorite coming into Beijing. Johnson, corn-fed from Iowa, was the kind of All-American girl that Retton was with a sunny nature and a smile that stayed put even if she faltered on a landing or a somersault. But it was the more exotic, Russian-born, Texas-raised Liukin who received some criticism for frowning while she worked, who thrived both at the Olympics and now afterward.

She is modeling a popular brand of blue jeans and is dining in Los Angeles and being noticed by producers of the CW teen-favorite television show Gossip Girl. She was on the Wheaties Box (like Retton) and has befriended Maria Sharapova, attending New York fashion week with the tennis star.

So if Nastia isn’t Mary Lou, she’s becoming something else: a sports and cultural presence who is as confident starring in US Magazine as at Beijing’s National Indoor Stadium.

-- Diane Pucin

esented by the Women’s Sports Foundation. Credit: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images for WSF