Sam Donnellon: In Liukin family, father knew best in chasing gold medal

BEIJING - He wore the look of a survivor.

Valeri Liukin had taken a foolish risk 12 years ago, a risk whose consequences he was all too familiar with. Yes, he told the daughter who had begun to haunt his training facility. If you must do this, I will train you.

"It isn't easy," he said yesterday, after Nastia Liukin won the gold medal in the Olympic all-around. "I'm not going to lie."

There were fights in the gym. There were fights in the home. Everything was great when it started, when daddy's little girl absorbed all his Olympic knowledge without question, looked at him with those trusting and obedient eyes. He was a double gold medalist for the Soviet Union in the Seoul Olympics in 1988, came within a wobbled-arm landing of winning gold there in this event. What was there to doubt?

But then came her teens. The questions. Always the questions. The resistance. Always the resistance.

The tears. Always the tears.

"Everyone matures differently," Valeri Liukin was saying. "But it's definitely easier when they're younger. It gets so much harder. They're very emotional. They're a little slower. You have to deal with a lot of other things. When they're younger, they're like a soldier. Now I have to prove it myself to her. We spend more and more time on that.

"But," he quickly added with a smile. "They get smarter later on, too."

The smarts got his daughter the gold yesterday. She began her day with a clean vault, but stumbled a bit on the landing in the uneven bars, failing to match the lofty 16.9 she received in the team finals on Wednesday. Her 16.65 there gave her the lead over teammate Shawn Johnson, the 4-9 world champion who was favored to win gold here.

Liukin and Johnson finished one-two on the balance beam, and it came down to the floor exercise, the final event.

Outsiders to this sport are often told that the difference between Johnson and Liukin is not just the contrast of athleticism and artistry, but poise. Liukin referred repeatedly to the "doubters" in the days leading up to yesterday's all-around, and Valeri, afterward, gave it credence as well.

"It wasn't easy for Nastia to be second, but I never believed Nastia was No. 2," he said. "Some judges maybe like Shawn, but Nastia's level of gymnastics is high. We calculate our course and come to the conclusion she is not second. She just makes mistakes."