Nastia travelled to Copenhagen, Denmark today as part of the delegation supporting Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games. Also in the delegation are President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey and thirteen other influential Olympians including Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Nadia Comaneci, Bart Connor and Michael Johnson. Before she left she posted a message to her fans on WOGA.net. Click here to view her message.

The International Gymnastics Federation today closed their 5 1/2-week investigation into the ages of the Chinese gymnasts at the Beijing Olympics, saying the documentation provided confirms they were old enough to compete. Following is a statement from Nastia regarding the investigation and its outcome:

“My family and I are pleased with the level of scrutiny the FIG and IOC undertook with this very serious issue. When the questions arouse originally in the press all anyone in the gymnastics and Olympic communities wanted was closure which we now have. Again, I congratulate my competitors from China and look forward to using my successes to help others and highlight issues that I care about including funding for cancer research, teen obesity and giving teens and tweens an opportunity to make the right life choices.”

Nastia was honored by more than 800 people at private celebration hosted by WOGA in Frisco on Saturday. Family, friends, teammates, sponsors and other supporters in Texas were all on hand to congratulate Nastia for her achievements in Beijing. A team from Dallas News were on hand to take portraits of Nastia, her father Valeri and fellow WOGA gymnast and 2004 Olympic Champion Carly Patterson. We will be posting a highlights video from the night as well as the slideshow that was played during the evening on Nastia website so her fans can enjoy the event as well.


Amongst the many special presentations made to Nastia at the party was the first and only world’s biggest pink gummi bear. Mike Ellsworth (a parent of one of Nastia’s teammates) was channel surfing while watching the Olympics and came across a story on the Food channel regarding the World’s Largest Gummi Bear maker. Knowing Nastia’s favorite candy is the Gummi Bear, he made contact with candyship.com who make the Gummi Bears to explain about the upcoming WOGA celebration. Mike Horowitz (from candyship.com) made contact the next day and was so excited as he is a huge fan and had already started experimenting with making the first and only pink world’s largest gummi bear. Mike had the item over nighted to Mike Ellsworth so that Cailee, Shay, Christa, Catherine, Mykle, Emily, Rebecca and Brittany (Nastia’s Team) could present it to her at the celebration. As you can see from the photo, Nastia was really excited to receive this unique gift! Click here to view more photos of Nastia receiving her special 4 pound sweet pink treat! Also included in the gallery are the portraits taken by Dallas News. Look out for many more photographs (and of course the videos) from the party soon!

Nastia is back on the road again, this time in Los Angeles for a number of appearances and photo shoots. On her schedule today was photo shoots for Wheaties and Cosmo Girl as well as meet and greets at both InStyle Magazine and People Magazine. Tomorrow she will be appearing on Ryan Seacrest’s Morning Show (102.7 KIIS FM) which will air twice in LA before being broadcast on 40 stations nationally, the Billy Bush Radio Show and will be taping her appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. She will also be taping a segment for an upcoming episode of the award-winning children’s news series called Nick News entitled “How I Spent My Summer Vacation!”.

Nastia arrived safely back in the US yesterday to a rousing reception from friends, family and fans at the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. The United Airlines jet she arrived in was doused as part of a water-cannon salute - courtesy of two fire engines. On hand to celebrate Nastia’s achievements was good friend and 2004 Olympic All Around Champion Carly Patterson. Nastia, Carly and her Mom and Dad held a press conference before Nastia and her family departed for home. Her arrival was broadcast live on NBCOlympics.com.

Celebrations for Nastia continue today with WOGA hosting a private function in her honor. The public will have their chance to celebrate her success with a parade through Parker, TX. Originally scheduled for August 23, the parade was has been postponed until August 30 due to bad weather in the area.

In other news, Nastia and Shawn Johnson are on the cover of US weekly. The article in the magazine details the triumphs and struggles of Nastia and her teammates in Beijing. A preview of the cover can be seen on the right.

Finally, we have sadly been forced to close Nastia’s guestbook indefinitely following repeated abuse by a number of visitors to her website. We are currently seeking a new script to manage her guestbook with that will allow for increased moderation and thereby protection for Nastia and visitors to her website. In the meantime her Official Myspace remains open. Please note that you will need to send a friend request in order to post a comment on her profile. If you have already sent a message but it has not yet appeared on her profile, do not resend your message. Nastia has received many thousands of messages since the Olympic began and we are still working to process them all. We thank you for your patience.

Congratulations Nastia - 2008 Olympic Balance Beam Silver Medalist! Nastia earned her fifth Olympic medal, a silver in the balance beam final this evening. This performance equals Shannon Miller’s 1992 record medal haul (Miller 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. She has often joked that she hoped to return from Beijing with more medals than her father earned 20 years ago at the 1988 Seoul Games. Nastia’s olympic campaign came to a close with a fantastic routine earning a score of 16.025 (6.6 A Score). Teammate Shawn Johnson took gold (16.225 / 7.0 A Score) with hometown favorite Cheng Fei taking the bronze (15.950 / 6.8 A Score). Congratulations Nastia!

Nastia will make her final appearance at the National Indoor Stadium tomorrow when she will join the other medalists in the traditional Gymnastics Gala. The Gala provides the opportunity for all of the athletes to let their hair down and celebrate their achievements at the Games for fans of the sport throughout the world.

Congratulations Nastia - 2008 Olympic Uneven Bars Silver Medalist! Competition has just concluded in the uneven bars final in Beijing with Nastia earning her fourth Olympic medal, a silver, to tie her father’s haul from the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Nastia and co-favorite He Kexin (China) were drawn to compete second and first respectively in the final. Both gymnasts hit their routines, Nastia with a stuck dismount, and both were awarded the identical score 16.725 (7.7 A Score / 9.025 B score). Despite this, due to an FIG tiebreak rule, Nastia was relegated to the silver medal position. Yang Yilin, bronze medalist from the all around, added another individual bronze medal to her collection earning a score of 16.650 (7.7 A Score) just ahead of Great Britain’s Beth Tweddle who despite having the highest A score (7.8) fell behind in the execution to miss a medal by 0.025. Congratulations Nastia!

Nastia will make her final appearance in competition tomorrow when she contests the balance beam final. Teammate Shawn Johnson has also qualified to compete in the final.

Congratulations Nastia - 2008 Olympic All Around Champion! It has been a magical few days for Nastia in Beijing winning a medal of every color! On Wednesday she competed on three events in team finals - including a meet high 16.900 (7.7 A score) on uneven bars - to help the team to a silver medal. The US women lead after the first rotation but the Chinese came back strongly on the uneven bars to take a lead which they retained throughout the rest of the competition. Romania snatched the bronze ahead of the team from Russia.

With both gymnasts performing at their best, the much anticipated contest between Nastia and her teammate Shawn for the Olympic All Around title did not disappoint. Nastia’s began her competition with a stuck yurchenko 1.5 earning a 15.035 (5.5 A score). She followed this with her two highest scores of the final, a 16.650 (7.7 A Score) on uneven bars and 16.125 (6.6 A Score) on balance beam and a strong performance on floor exercise (15.525 / A Score) to win the gold medal by more than half a point (63.325). “Standing on the podium and hearing `Olympic champion’ next to my name was a dream come true. Everything pays off at this very moment.” The victory made all the more special because she was able to share it with her father, who 20 years ago missed winning the same title by 0.1. “Just to know that he was so close to (the all-around gold) and didn’t quite achieve it … I hope, you know, I cleared away any of those bad little memories for him. I hope that this definitely tops it. I have a few more to go, but it is an amazing accomplishment just to be here with him, out on the floor 20 years after he competed. I think it just means so much more to both of us. I don’t know, just all the hard work paying off. All the injuries, tears, blood, rips — everything.” And from Valeri, “It’s not possible to describe how proud I am … I’m very proud of my baby.”

Nastia kicked off her event final campaign tonight by taking a bronze medal (she now has a complete ’set’) in the floor exercise final. Many expected that she might falter, overcome following her all around success, but Nastia produced her best floor routine of the Olympics to score a 15.425 (6.2 A Score). Romania’s Sandra Izbasa took gold (15.650 / 6.5 A Score) ahead of Shawn Johnson (15.500 / 6.4 A Score). Nastia will compete in the uneven bars final on Monday and close her Olympic campaign on Tuesday with the beam final. Congratulations on your success so far Nastia and good luck in the coming finals!

Nastia and her teammates overcame a late injury to Samantha Peszek in their warm up to finish second as a team and move into Wednesday’s team final following the qualification round held in Beijing today. Peszek was expected to compete on four events but injured her knee during the final warm up and was limited to only uneven bars. This meant that the US girls were only able to compete four athletes on vault, balance beam and floor exercise. Despite this late setback, the team earned the highest team totals on vault and balance beam. Nastia competed on all four events and despite a fall on her uneven bars dismount posted the second highest all around total (62.375), less than 0.35 behind teammate Shawn Johnson. Her best scores came on balance beam (15.975 / 6.6 A Score) and uneven bars (15.950 / 7.7 A Score) however she also earned impressive scores on vault (15.100 / 5.5 A Score) - including a 9.8 from one B panel judge - and floor exercise (15.350 / 6.2 A Score). In addition to the Team Final, Nastia’s performance individually qualified her to All Around, Uneven Bars, Balance Beam and Floor Exercise finals. She joins Cheng Fei (CHN) and Anna Pavlova (RUS) as the only athletes to qualify to three individual event finals. Click here to access full results from the preliminary round. Congratulations Nastia and Team USA! Nastia and her teammates will next compete in the Team Final on Wednesday at 11.00am! We have posted a number of photographs from qualifications!

Nastia and her teammates will make their first competition appearance at the Olympic Games tommorrow when they compete in the Qualification Round from which teams and individuals will attempt to qualify into the finals. The US women are scheduled to compete in Subdivision 2 commencing at 1:30pm in Beijing and will begin their campaign on floor exercise. Good luck to Nastia and the US girls! The team performed well in official podium training on Thursday and, as expected, look poised to be in a the gold medal fight with the team from China. Nastia will compete on all four events and will anchor the team in uneven bars. Interested fans should note that NBCOlympics.com provided a unique insight in the gymnastics events by streaming live action from podium training. An archive of Team USA’s Podium Training session can be viewed on NBCOympics.com for those who missed the live feed. We have added photographs from Podium Training as well as the team’s first press conference also held on Thursday.

In other news, Nastia has supported the Dallas Morning News Charities throughout 2008. The Charities help people who find themselves in need of everything from a hot meal and a warm bed to job training skills. They recently launched a number of auctions through ebay.com for autographed merchandise donated by Nastia to support their work. Currently available is an US National Team Leotard and a poster from International Gymnast both personally autography by Nastia. Show your support for the work of the Dallas Morning News charities and make a bid to win one of these fantastic collectors items! Look out for more items to be added during the Olympics. For more information about Dallas Morning News Charities, please visit their website.

Lastly Nastia will be appearing in The World Tour of Gymnastics Champions following the Olympic Games. Tickets for the tour are already available. Be sure to visit the website and book your seats now!