OLYMPICS STILL DOMINATING HEADLINES, BUT THAT’S OK

With the Summer Olympics dominating the majority of news coverage as well as the majority of my free time, it’s safe to say that pretty much everything of interest happened last night in Beijing (technically, I guess it was this morning).

U.S. Swimmer Michael Phelps won his sixth gold medal and captured a sixth world record. He’ll race tonight for a chance to tie Mark Spitz as the Olympian with the most gold medals in a single Games.

And in women’s gymnastics, 18-year-old Nastia Liukin became only the third American to win gold in the coveted all-around competition.

Liukin edged teammate Shawn Johnson for the all-around gold in women’s gymnastics Friday in an intense matchup that lived up to its billing at the Beijing Games. Liukin finished with 63.325 points, a mere six-tenths ahead of Johnson, the reigning world champion who beat Liukin at the U.S. championships and Olympic trials only a few weeks ago.

Yang Yilin of China won the bronze.

“I don’t think it’s really set in, but I feel like this journey has been so long,” Liukin said. [NANCY ARMOUR - AP]

The coolest part of this whole story is that Nastia did something her father — former decorated Soviet gymnast Valeri Liukin — couldn’t do by winning the all-around title. And she did it on the 20th anniversary his narrow loss to fellow Soviet Vladimir Artemov in Seoul — whose son Sasha Artemev led the U.S. men’s gymnastics team to a bronze medal earlier this week.

More important than Nastia winning gold however, was her winning my heart. It’s important because gold medals last forever, but my undying affection only lasts for a few weeks.