For years, Nastia Liukin was the face of U.S. gymnastics, an all-around world champion, a two-time national champion, and the favorite for Olympic gold. Then in 2007, a new name emerged, dominating every major competition in her rookie season. Suddenly, the spotlight shifted. The media had a new star. Liukin had ruled the world stage in 2005 and 2007, winning gold on beam and bars.

But by 2008, everything changed. Injuries piled up. Uncertainty set in. The sport she once owned seemed to move on without her. Now, she’s speaking out!

The emergence of 4 time Olympic medalist Shawn Johnson shifted the spotlight.

“Up until 2007, it was like I was the favorite, right? Because she wasn’t on the scene yet,” Liukin recalled at Life After with David Vobora Podcast. “That moment was where I started struggling,” she admitted. The shift in public perception hit hard. “Literally a month ago, you loved me,” she said.

Liukin also dealt with injuries. Just before the 2007 World Championships, doctors told her, “You need surgery… but I know you’re trying to leave in a week for the World Championships.” She competed anyway. “The bone chips… traveled behind my Achilles tendon… I kept re-injuring it because I wasn’t patient.”

The struggle wasn’t just physical. As Nastia Liukin battled an ankle injury, Johnson burst onto the senior elite scene in 2007, winning the all-around gold at the U.S. National Championships and at the 2007 World Championships. Thus, the alarm bells started ringing for Liukin. The spotlight had shifted dramatically. The media had a new darling!

“Everybody who used to love me and say that I was the greatest thing, that I walked on water, and that I was the future—now, all of a sudden, everything has flipped,” Liukin recalled. “That was the first time I fully experienced something like that. Like, literally a month ago, you loved me and talked so highly of me.”

The rivalry intensified in 2008. At the American Cup, Johnson fell on her Amanar vault but still managed second place overall, while Liukin took gold with an uneven bars score nearly a point higher than Johnson’s. Just months later at the 2008 U.S. Visa Championships, Johnson edged out Liukin by one point for the all-around title, a feat she repeated at the Olympic Trials. By the time the 2008 Beijing Olympics arrived, Shawn Johnson was America’s golden girl, and Liukin toiled hard to reclaim her former glory.

“When I started seeing this happening, I was like, ‘Wait, are they right? Am I now not good enough? Am I too old? Am I too injured? Are there girls better than me?‘” Liukin questioned. “I was at the worst place in my entire life, really.”

The psychological toll manifested: “You’re only going to love me if I win. You’re only going to love me if I’m the best. You’re only going to love me and support me if I get a gold medal.” Well, that’s the harsh reality of sports!

Yet in a stunning turn of events at the 2008 Olympics, Liukin performed flawlessly in the all-around final, sticking her landings on three out of four events to capture the gold medal with a score of 63.325. Johnson took silver with 62.725.

Shawn Johnson reveals eight-year silence moments with Nastia Liukin

They were once inseparable, best friends, training partners, and Olympic roommates. Shawn Johnson East and Nastia Liukin took on the world together at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, their bond forged through years of relentless training and a shared dream. But beneath the performances and golden podiums, cracks were forming.

“Nastia and I, we were best friends, training, and at the Olympics, we were roommates,” Johnson East told Access Hollywood last year. “We had figured out how to be competitors and best friends at the same time.” But the world saw it differently.

The media, the fans, and even the sport itself, everyone wanted a rivalry. They weren’t just teammates; they were pitted as opposites. Johnson East, the powerhouse with explosive routines. Liukin, the elegant stylist with balletic grace. “But when the world kind of started interjecting how we should handle it, they said we should also be each other’s worst enemies as well,” Johnson East revealed.

And just like that, they stopped talking. Eight years of silence.

For nearly a decade, they lived separate lives. Johnson East retired in 2012 after an injury dashed her London Olympics hopes. Liukin mentored young gymnasts and built her brand beyond the sport. But fate, and a little push from their partners, changed everything.

After years of silence, Nastia Liukin’s boyfriend, Ben Weyand, and Shawn Johnson’s husband, Andrew East, finally had enough. Tired of hearing their names come up without action, they pushed the two to talk. That small nudge was all it took to break nearly a decade of distance.

One lunch in New York was all it took. “Within two minutes, we were back to being best friends,” she said. “We both said the same thing, ‘I don’t know what happened, but I miss you, and I miss us.’”

Just a pure-hearted friendship and it’s great to see them reconciled!