Gymnast Sean Johnson has detailed why he refused to speak to his best friend and former Olympic teammate Nastia Liukin for eight years.
Johnson, 32, who won a gold medal for the balance beam at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, opened up about the end of her friendship with Liukin, 35, during a recent interview. Access Hollywood..
“Nastia and I were best friends, training, and me [2008] We were roommates at the Olympics,” Johnson recalled. “We were 16 and 18, we were kids.”
Although the pair found a way to be both rivals and friends, the public’s desire for them to be bitter rivals drove a wedge between the phenomena.
“I felt like we were under the spotlight and scrutiny to be each other’s top, biggest competitors,” Johnson explained.
“And we learned on the competition floor how to be the best of friends and rivals. But when the world started interjecting how we should handle it, they said we had to be at each other’s worst. There must be enemies.
After the Beijing Games, Johnson and Liukin did not speak for eight years. Only after the intervention of their significant others did the gymnasts reconnect and rekindle their friendship.
“Our boyfriends at the time were so tired of us talking about each other that they said, ‘That’s enough, just talk to each other again,’ and we did,” Johnson revealed. ” “And since then, it’s just like we haven’t missed a beat.”
“It was amazing,” Johnson said of her and Liukin’s reunion, but added, “It was really confusing for both of us because we were really nervous.”
“We didn’t know how to bring him back to life. [friendship]”, the gold medalist admitted, though her panic was short-lived. “It was really, like, within two minutes we were back to being best friends.”
“We both said the same thing, ‘I don’t know what happened but I miss you and I miss us,'” Johnson said of the reconciliation. “And it’s been that way ever since.”
In addition to a gold medal in the balance beam event, Johnson, who married former NFL player Andrew East in April 2016, won three silver medals at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, the floor exercise, individual But all over and around the team. .
Liukin won gold for the individual all-around in women’s gymnastics this year, silver for the uneven bars, balance beam, and team all-around, as well as a bronze for the floor event.
Johnson retired from gymnastics in 2012 after a long battle to overcome a knee injury that ultimately kept her out of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Liukin retired from the sport the same year after failing to make the United States’ 2012 Olympic team.
Credit : nypost.com
