Valeri Viktorovich Liukin (Russian: Валерий Викторович Люкин, born 17 December 1966 in Aktyubinsk, Kazakh SSR, Soviet Union) is a retired competitive artistic gymnast who competed for the former Soviet Union. Liukin is the 1988 Olympic Champion in the team competition and individually on the horizontal bar and Olympic silver medalist in the all-around and the parallel bars. He is now a coach.
Liukin is the first man to do a triple back flip on fl...
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Valeri Viktorovich Liukin (Russian: Валерий Викторович Люкин, born 17 December 1966 in Aktyubinsk, Kazakh SSR, Soviet Union) is a retired competitive artistic gymnast who competed for the former Soviet Union. Liukin is the 1988 Olympic Champion in the team competition and individually on the horizontal bar and Olympic silver medalist in the all-around and the parallel bars. He is now a coach.
Liukin is the first man to do a triple back flip on floor and both a layout Tkatchev and a Jaeger with full twist on high bar.
Liukin became a U.S. citizen in 2000. He is married to Anna Kotchneva and is the father and coach of 2008 Olympic champion Nastia Liukin. He is co-owner of the World Olympic Gymnastics Academy with Yevgeny Marchenko.
Liukin began gymnastics when he was 7 years old. He moved to Moscow to join the Soviet Junior National team. His rise in the ranks was consistent and his world debut came at the 1985 Friendship Cup. During his career, he was coached by Eduard Yarov. Liukin...
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