Category Archives: Asiana Peng, ROM

Liukin is “impressed” with the Romanian juniors program

Peng is “glad nobody get in a fight”

Asiana Peng meeting her favorite American gymnast, Nastia Liukin.

DEVA, ROMANIA – United States gymnastics star Nastia Liukin had always wondered how Romania, her former competition, went about training its younger gymnasts.  She found out on Friday when she paid a surprise visit with her father and former coach to the gymnastics training center in Deva.

“I’ve been hearing some pretty awesome . . . hang on, I got a text,” Liukin said as she and her father, gymnastics great Valeri Liukin, walked across the parking lot toward the center amid furious winds.

After dealing with her text-sender, Liukin went on.  “I’ve heard great things about Asiana Peng and I watched a few of her performance videos.  She’s very talented.  So I figured this was a perfect time to not only meet Asiana but also to learn about the differences in training between the Romanians and Americans, especially in methods used for junior gymnasts.”

Father and daughter stopped for an extended hug and kiss in the training center’s long, narrow entry way (“We don’t got no time for it at the hotel this morning,” Valeri said), then, together with several Romanian Gymnastics Federation officials, they walked into the main hall.

Nastia stopped, in awe of the hall, and her father walked into her back.  “Wow, it’s so big!” Nastia exclaimed.

Valeri Liukin smiled at the RGF officials.  “What she say is true,” he said and winked at them.

As soon as Peng, 11, spotted Liukin, she left off chalking a set of bars and came running over.

“Are you who I think you are?” Peng asked Liukin.

Liukin threw back her hair and smiled.  “Of course.  Who else?”

Several attendants of Liukin’s set down a large cake frosted red, blue and yellow, the colors of the Romanian flag.  Silverware, napkins and plates were placed beside the cake on a table.

“Wow, you look like you do on TV, only prettier!” Peng said.

“Thank you,” Liukin said.  “Look, we brought a cake that you can all have a little bit of if your coaches will let you.”

The conversation was short-lived when former Romanian senior national team member Steliana Nistor joined the group.  Nistor was at Deva to celebrate the birthday of one of Peng’s fellow team members, who is Nistor’s cousin.

“Don’t tell me you get lost and wind up here,” Nistor said to Liukin in an unpleasant voice.

Liukin said, “I came to learn about Romania and meet Asiana.”

Nistor, 23 and a member of the 2008 Olympic team for Romania that competed against Liukin’s Americans, grabbed Peng and pulled her close, wrapping protective arms around the much smaller girl.

“She don’t need no meeting with you,” Nistor said to Liukin.  “She got enough trouble without listening at all your capital poison!”

“God, you’re a sore loser,” Liukin said.  “It’s been four years – can’t you get over the fact you guys lost fair and square?”

Nistor yelled, “I got an apartment and a car cause only the good die young.  What do you got?

“Three homes, two businesses and investment property in the Bahamas,” Nastia replied calmly.

Nistor paused.  “Yeah, but do you got a car?”

Liukin fanned the air in front of her face.  “Can somebody get this . . . person away from me?  She’s making me sick.”

Nistor lunged for the table, but two assistant coaches grabbed her when they saw her reaching for the cake knife.  Valeri Liukin pulled his daughter back about ten feet.  Peng started to cry and ran across the gym to where other coaches were surrounded by young gymnasts.

As the coaches who had Nistor dragged her out of the gym, Nistor yelled, “Tu ești cel care face toata lumea pizda rău, dracului de prost! Voi rupe fata ta, dacă te găsești în Deva din nou!”  Translated, it meant, “You’re the one who makes people sick and I will hit you in the face if you come back to Deva.”

Liukin brushed hair away from her eyes.  “Temperamental Romanians,” she said, then, “Oh, my God!”

Walking toward Liukin and her father was Peng and one of her coaches Gina Gogean, a star on the Romanian national team from 1991 to 1997.

“Gina . . .” Liukin began.

“You got cake for Asiana?” Gina asked Liukin.

Valeri said, “Hey, Gina – remember me?”

Gina said, “Yeah, the one with no (expletive).”  To Nastia: “You got cake for Asiana?  If you do, everybody eat, cause in five minute I take her on the bars and hopefully forgetting her about you coming here and influencing her to lazy.”

It was silent for the next few minutes as everyone except Gogean ate a small piece of cake.

Gogean put her hand on Peng’s neck.  “Time to go.  Say bye.”

“But I wanted–” Peng began.

“Time to go,” Gogean said, more sternly.  “Say bye.”

Peng said, “Bye, Nastia.  Thanks for coming to see me.  I really liked watching you in the–” And that was all she got out before Gogean began shoving her toward the other side of the gym.

Later, during a break in training, Peng tried to explain the behavior of the two older Romanian women.  “Junior girls – we always see as innocent and need protecting,” Peng said.  “I like Nastia in gymnastics and always want to meet her, so I am happy for her not to be killing by Stela and Coach Gina.  I’m glad nobody get in a fight.”

Gogean said, “Asiana is the rising sun on this team, and I can’t taking chances Nastia’s vile spirit rubbing off on little dancing panda.”

Peng’s next competition with her junior team is the Europa Cup, December 12-14 in Lillehammer, Norway.

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Sarah!

One of her protégés is Asiana Peng

PLUS: Raducan interviews Asiana

NOTE: As you will all notice, WordPress has once again performed an upgrade that makes its application even more fucked up.  This time, they made it so that when you click on a photo, it opens up  in some stupid-ass WordPress window, rather than the normal photo viewer screen we get when we click on any of the trillions of photos on the Internet.   I guess I shouldn’t say this makes WP more fucked up.  What I should say is this is a move that has ZERO advantage for readers.  It was something some under-25 WP tech-addict fuck-up put in simply because he could. REMEMBER: Now when you click a photo, you have to use the back arrow to get back to the story.  If you do the X, you’ll be off the site.

The stupid fuckers have also changed a few things for the worse in the editing/admin panel I work with all the time and have made things more complicated, so I”m on yet another learning curve, trying to learn a new system that is in no way beneficial to me.

Gina and Asiana.

I think Asiana is around 11.  She’s a Romanian gymnast, so it’s impossible to find very much about her online.  I have found out through Deluxe (I think he’s the one who first mentioned her to me) that’s she’s half-Romanian and half Chinese.

Too young still for the senior team, Asiana’s on the Romanian junior team currently. Romania never adds more than two years to a gymnast’s age, compared with the Chinese who are comfortable adding five or six, and the North Koreans, who added about eight for Kim Gwang Suk.

The Couch Gymnast mentioned that Asiana is coached by “Luciana Menciu, Gina Gogean and Cristinel Micu.”  Gina’s Romanian, too, so ditto on finding out anything useful about her online, even though, statistically, she’s the second-best gymnast to ever compete.  I wonder if she gave up snail farming to get back into gymnastics.

But either way, Asiana looks pretty good for her age.  (I mean her gymnastics skills look good.)  Here are a few routines from this year (2012) for those of you who have never watched her.

BEAM

The junior girls chatter just like the senior girls BECAUSE THEY ARE A TEAM.

FLOOR

Here they’ve got Asiana, a child, performing to dramatic, sophisticated music, while 16 years ago they had 18-year-old Amy Chow dancing around to banjo music and songs about the racist south.

BARS

On bars, Asiana does good work while all kinds of girls are screaming their heads off in the background.  Then when she dismounts, two people clap.

I couldn’t find a video with Asiana vaulting, so maybe they’re not working on that at this point.

There’s another interesting video, which is in The Medal Factory series that’s hosted by beautiful Andreea Raducan.  In this show, she talks to a lot of the current juniors including Asiana.  It’s long, but if you have time, it’s fun to watch.

Sarah!

NEXT: Asiana gets a surprise visit from an American gold medalist!