Nastia Liukin on 'Special Forces' journey: "The mental toughness... that doesn't just go away"

Maybe a tight rope over a desert canyon and a set of uneven bars aren’t so different after all.

The latter Olympic champion gymnast Nastia Liukin made look like child’s play, though it was far from it. Her all-around triumph at the Beijing 2008 Games was made possible in no small part by her ability to make one of the most difficult routines on the event – ever – look like a graceful, inverted ballet.

The former is where Liukin, 33, found herself more than a decade later as part of the FOX reality television show, “Special Forces.” Some 200 feet (over 60m) high above the ground, Liukin was one of three contestants to successfully made it across the 300-foot-wide (90m) crossing.

Both feats showed the gymnastics star the depths of her mental strength.

“Not all of it was shown, but I almost fell at least seven times,” Liukin recalled in an exclusive interview with Olympics.com. “I specifically remember thinking, ‘No, you’re at the Olympic Games right now.’ I literally would just pull myself up and be like, ‘The gold medal is on the line.’”

“That made me realise the mental toughness, the mental strength, that just doesn’t go away,” she continued. “Maybe you don’t use it every single day, [but it’s there.]”

• Nastia Liukin on the "little moments" that made her 2008 triumph special

Nastia Liukin: Pushing her limits

Liukin’s ‘Special Forces’ experience was all about breaking out of her everyday routine. The show took 16 celebrities including fellow Olympic champion Carli Lloyd and silver medallist Gus Kenworthy to the desert of Jordan to undergo military-like training.

“I think all-in-all, I just tried to keep telling myself that this would be good for me to just not be fully in control,” said Liukin. “So much of my life has been a schedule, very black and white. The thing that was probably one of the most difficult about the show was not being prepared, and also just not even not being prepared, but not knowing how to prepare.”

The show’s first episode saw Liukin diving backwards out of a helicopter, mastering the tight rope and failing a final challenge that asked the contestants to be physically aggressive with a member of the staff.

“I don’t want to hit someone and I don’t want to be hit. I don’t want to be tossed around. I can’t fight someone,” Liukin said in the episode.

But Liukin soldiered on to day three where the physical test involved being underwater in a car for 20 seconds and then swimming to the surface.

When her turn came, Liukin informed the staff of an old gymnastics injury – she hit her face on the uneven bars performing a release move years ago – that has caused her issues with breathing.

As an accommodation, one of the staff joined Liukin, who subsequently completed the task, in the car.

Though many of her fellow recruits praised her for pushing through the challenge that clearly made her uncomfortable, some expressed their displeasure that she was given a pass with assistance others didn’t receive.

The help from the crew and the reaction to it didn’t sit well with Liukin at the time.

“I kept trying to convince them I don’t want special treatment,” she said. “I think for me, the biggest thing was my integrity being on the line, my integrity being questioned essentially. I didn’t win the Olympics with special treatment. I didn’t want to be there with special treatment.”

Re-living that moment as the show aired last week, Liukin admitted she saw things differently having gotten some distance.

“This was a personal journey for all of us, and I think that’s what the staff kept trying to explain to me. It was like, ‘It’s OK. We wanted to give you help, you didn’t ask for it but this is your journey,’” she explained. “I’m like, ‘Well, nobody else got help.’ But that's their journey, you know? They were trying to explain that to me.

“I think in the moment,” Liukin continued. “I was just so not receptive to that because it just kept making me feel like it was special treatment.”

Still, months later, she can still look back with pride at her vanquishing of the tight rope.

“That was a moment that I was proud of because everyone constantly says, ‘Oh, you’re not strong.’ ‘You’re too this.’ ‘You’re too that.’ But to show that, yeah, I’m not physically the strongest one there, but I still was able to do something like that was a moment that made me proud.”

Liukin ahead of 14th Nastia Liukin Cup: "I wanted to give them that feeling of you are special"

Liukin’s mental toughness – something that helped her to five Olympic and nine World medals – was honed at early age.
Liukin still remembers the first time she competed on podium, the raised platform for the equipment utilised at the World championships and Olympic Games. It was in 2002 at the aptly named ‘Podium Meet.’

“[It] was right before the American Cup competition… then, I stayed, and I watched the American Cup,” she recalled. “I remember being in the stands with my dad [and coach Valeri Liukin, 1988 Olympic champion] and him saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be so cool if one like you could compete at the American Cup?’”

Liukin, of course, did compete at the American Cup, winning balance beam at the 2005 event and all-around titles in 2006 and 2008.

But that first time on the podium left such an impression on Liukin that after taking all-around gold in Beijing, she had an idea: the Nastia Liukin Cup, a Level 10 developmental meet held on a podium each year. The 2023 edition, set for 24 February in Louisville, will be the 14th.

The Cup has become one of the most prestigious developmental competitions in the United States, with thousands of young gymnasts taking part in the qualifying series of events in hopes of earning a trip to the event, which includes a leotard and warmup and a luncheon with Liukin herself.

The event has seen everyone from stand-out NCAA athletes like Haleigh Bryant to Olympic all-around champion Gabby Douglas participate.

Liukin hopes that no matter the athlete’s goals or where their career may ultimately lead, that the Nastia Liukin Cup leaves them with something special.

“I wanted to give them that feeling of you are special, you are incredible,” Liukin said. “No matter what your accomplishments are, you are just as good as everybody else. I wanted them to feel like they were competing at the Olympics and now that they had made it, this is your moment, now just go out there and enjoy.”