2009 Gymnastics Worlds without Nastia Liukin

Hey! I'm here again to update my Blog with a sad and upsetting news: Nastia Liukin will be not at 2009 World Championships in London.

She's been thinking about this decision for a while since 2009 VISA Championships,because she has always said that if she's not in the best shape and if she can't give her 100% in competitions she doesn't want to take part on them.

And Nastia is not just any,she's the reigning Olympic Champion,she's the best in the World,she can't go out there and considering herself miracle if she enters in a final,she wants to go out there and give her best to win gold medals,this is the best for Nastia:the podium,the medals,the Gold medals.

So in the press conference she had yesterday she said explictly that she hadn't have time to prepare herself for the World Championships that are in a month from now,with the travels and the obligations she always had to suspend her training for a day or two and it's frustrating because you want to continue to training and you're somewhere else,I think you can't continue in this way.

And Nastia took this decision that is the best for her and also for her teammates and for USA Gymnastics,so she can give place on the team to other girls that don't have much experience like she has. She don't want just the experience because she has got much of it with her 9 world medals and 5 Olympic medals,she wants to win and to win you have to be really focused on training and training and training not on travels or apparances.

So I support this Nastia's choice for her withdrawl from 2009 World Championships.

But there's another news from Nastia. She's going to take a break from gymnastics for this year. She said this means not a retirement and has nothing to do with the rest of her career,she wants just take this break to focus on her Nastia Liukin Cup and Nastia Liukin Fund,on gymnastics charity and she wants to take a vacation maybe in an island somewhere.

She's right,she's never had a real vacation and now she totally deserves one,I'm by her side.

When she will come back she wants to start all over,London 2012 and 2010 and 2011 World Championships are always on her mind and gymnastics is part of her soul and no matter how long she will compete it will be forever and always in her heart.

These are some parts of her Press Conference of yesterday:

“Absolutely not even a question,” Liukin told Inside exclusively of her commitment to not only stay in sport, but return to competition. “I’ll be back for sure.”

It’s still unknown when that return will happen—“I’m not setting a date for myself right now,” Liukin said of when she plans to resume training—so, for now, the only certainty is that the Olympic Champ won’t be competing in London this October.

"I know it’s probably a shock to some, but [I’ve been] thinking about this for quite a while now,” Liukin explained today in a media conference call. “Just because of all the obligations I had and the travel I’ve done—time was running out. I knew I didn’t want to go out there and represent Team USA unless I was at my best. The best for me is to be able to compete for a gold medal and, at this point, I’m physically not capable of doing that.”

“Martha was definitely the hardest call I made, probably, in my life,” Liukin shared. “I honestly didn’t even know how to start. I spent about two days tracking down her [phone] number, all the way in Romania, and I talked to Bela first [because] Martha was doing her daily walk when I called. I think [Bela] was worried when we hung up because Martha called me back, like, five minutes later. She started asking how gym was going and I had to say, ‘Well, that’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.’ I could tell it was a little hard for her to take … [but] we had a nice long conversation.

“She’s been by my side my whole entire career and has always supported—and continues to support me—in whatever I do,” added Liukin of Karolyi. “She, of course, tried to convince me to give it one more shot, but [my parents and I] made the decision that it would be best, not just for me, but for the rest of the team.”

“It hasn’t been easy,” an emotional Liukin concluded, “but, at the same time, I know this is the right decision for me at this time. I don’t want to go out there and perform if I’m not 100 percent. I’ve set my standards too high. I don’t want to compete just for the experience. I feel that anyone else on the National Team could benefit more than me from that experience.”

“I hope to go on vacation, hopefully to an island, some place tropical,” said Liukin wistfully. “But, just looking at my calendar now, it’s booking like crazy, just in the last few days, which is exciting, but I definitely know I’ll have to plan a vacation in there somewhere, somehow. But I’ve been putting so many things off to train—now that I’ve decided to put that on hold, I’ve got other obligations.”

“I would leave for three or four days and have to come back and start all over,” Liukin said of her slow progress. “That was frustrating. … I was [spread too thin.] I thought I would be able to balance everything out but (trails off)… I gave it all I had, and I gave it my best, but time is just coming too fast and the traveling didn’t stop soon enough, I guess.

“I’ve been training all the way up to this past weekend, full-time,” added Liukin of her exhausting schedule. “I will be taking a little bit of time off and, as soon as I feel ready to come back, I’ll be back in the gym. … I really feel like it is necessary, just because I haven’t really had that much time off since, well, ever. I wasn’t always in the gym, but I was always on the go. Now, I need to regroup and get ready for the next thing.”

“This is by no means a retirement or the end of my career,” she stated emphatically, repeating that fact more than once during her 30-minute chat with the media. “I’m just taking some time off to rest my mind and take that break that I haven’t had since the Olympic Games. In terms of 2012, I definitely want to continue training and keep that in the back of my mind. But I definitely want to take a break right now and focus on some other things.

“This decision has nothing to do with the rest of my career,” Liukin reiterated. “It is based on just this year, just these World Championships. I really want people to understand that. I just didn’t have time to prepare. There are still World Championships in 2010, 2011 and I will try and do that. That is a still a very possible goal to achieve and, of course, with 2012 only three years away, that’s still on my mind.”

“I guess I’m the kind of person who likes to please people,” Liukin concluded a bit sadly, “so I hope I’m not letting too many people down."

Thanks to Inside Gymnastics for the pieces of the Press Conference.