Nastia Liukin

STUTTGART, Germany -- Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson will be teammates for United States women's gymnastics Wednesday, hoping to lead it to a team gold medal. They will be rivals the rest of the week, aiming to win the all-around title and individual event medals and set themselves up as favorites to be the best gymnast at next summer's Olympics in Beijing. After a dominating performance in qualifying Sunday, the U.S.

Nastia Liukin is supposed to be the next big thing among U.S. athletes in Olympic sports, no matter that she is just the next little young woman to become a star gymnast. She hasn't made it yet, but the problem isn't her size -- 5 feet 1, about 90 pounds. It is the things big and little that have conspired to keep Liukin from gaining her expected stature as the world's best female gymnast.

BEIJING -- Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson were still processing the aftermath of winning Olympic gold and silver gymnastics all-around medals Friday night when they began to think about what was up next. Practice at the National Indoor Stadium at 10 a.m. today and then a chance to win more medals. Event finals begin Sunday and last through Tuesday. The U.S. women have the chance to win six more medals and the Chinese women seven.

The winner cried, astounded that her two mistakes on uneven bars and floor exercise didn't relegate her to second place. The loser cried too, after she finished her final event, floor exercise, with a routine that was done with some bent knees and maybe a turn that wasn't quite completed. The U.S. captured the second major women's gold medal awarded at the 2011 World Gymnastics Championships in Tokyo on Thursday when 16-year-old Jordyn Wieber of DeWitt, Mich., won the all-around gold medal by edging out 16-year-old Victoria Komova of Russia, who won silver.

BEIJING -- Shawn Johnson had dark circles under her brown eyes and a headache, but when she jumped onto the balance beam Tuesday night she switched on her smile and defiantly pounded out a gold- medal routine. It wasn't the gold Johnson wanted. She had come here as the favorite to win the all-around title, had hoped to lead the U.S. team to a gold medal, had hoped to defend her world championship on floor exercise and add to that a balance beam gold medal. But through a succession of silvers -- team, all-around, floor -- Johnson, 16, of West Des Moines, Iowa, stuck out her chin, wiped away tears and insisted that silver was just as nice as gold.

BOSTON -- Shawn Johnson, 16, announced emphatically that she is ready to defend her national gymnastics all-around title by pounding out a powerful floor exercise routine, four passes packed with double twisting somersaults and triple circling balance moves. Nastia Liukin, 18, scored her highest mark on uneven bars, 17.050, and that only brought her to second place Thursday on the first night of the 2008 Visa Championships women's gymnastics nationals at Agganis Arena. Johnson, who suffered her only all-around defeat since becoming a senior level competitor last year to Liukin at the Tyson's American Cup in New York in March, had a 63.450 all-around score.

When Lindsey Vonn finished her gold-medal-winning ski run during the Vancouver Olympics, she not only looked like a winner — she looked ready for her close-up. Setting aside her achievement on the slopes, how does a woman come through that kind of physical workout looking downright gorgeous? Somehow many female Olympic athletes seem able to look terrific during the most physically challenging workouts of their lives, muscling through pain, trying to conquer stress and battle nerves.

Olympic gold medalists Michael Phelps and Nastia Liukin guest star in the final holiday doggie video from the White House. In the "Barney Cam" Christmas greeting, the first family's Scottish terrier scampers amid the White House's holiday decorations before retiring for a nap and imagining himself as an athlete. Barney is shown in cutout animation as an Olympic vaulter, swimmer and synchronized diver with fellow terrier Miss Beazley. He also dreams of sinking the final putt to secure the Ryder Cup, with the entire U.S. Ryder Cup team chanting "Barney, Barney, Barney!"

In the course of researching sports and Twitter, I've started following about 75 athletes, coaches, owners and leagues on Twitter. My cellphone is constantly beeping as new updates come in from Lance Armstrong, Shaquille O'Neal, Steve Nash, Andy Roddick, Nastia Liukin, Shawn Johnson, Barry Zito, Mark Cuban, Pete Carroll. I could go on and on, but I won't. In fact, now that the story is finished, I'm banishing some from my list. It's just too hard and you become an object of derision when you are at dinner with friends and stop just as the soft-shelled crab has arrived and yell, "Lance Armstrong just tweeted with a picture of his broken collarbone!"