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Johnson, Liukin passed at end, take second-third in floor exercise

BEIJING • Shawn Johnson thought she had the last laugh against her U.S. teammate.

A Romanian gymnast with flashy moves and near-flawless execution spoiled the party.

Johnson won a silver medal and Nastia Liukin was the bronze medalist Sunday in the floor exercise at the Beijing Games, both upstaged on the final routine by Romania’s Sandra Izbasa.

It was a shocking conclusion to an entertaining final, coming after Alicia Sacramone narrowly missed a bronze with a fourth-place finish on vault and Morrison’s Sasha Artemev stumbled to seventh on pommel horse.

The first gymnast to compete, Johnson, 16, of Des Moines, Iowa, drew roars from the crowd with a dazzling routine, almost as good as the one she performed Friday, when she won a silver – Liukin claimed gold – in the individual all-around.

Her 15.500 remained the top mark after miscues by Chinese sensations Cheng Fei and Jiang Yuyuan, former world champion Daiane Santos of Brazil and 2004 Olympic bronze medalist Anna Pavlova of Russia.

Going seventh in the eight-person final, Liukin, 18 of Plano, Texas, nearly caught Johnson with a 15.425, one point less than her individual all-around score, possibly because of a slight slippage on her final landing.

Izbasa, 18, was about as good as you could get, notching a 15.650, higher than any of the scores she posted in winning three golds, a silver and a bronze at World Cup events the past three years.

“Sandra had an amazing routine,” said Johnson, who will compete Tuesday on the balance beam. “She stuck all of her landings. She had beautiful execution, and she has the flexibility. She has everything. … My landings could have been a little better, but I did what I could. I take nothing back from it. I have no regrets.”

Most considered Izbasa a heavy underdog given her tendency to step out of bounds – certainly not a challenger to Johnson, the reigning all-around and floor world champion, or Liukin, a runner-up on floor at the 2005 world championships.

“She stayed in,” said Liukin, scheduled to compete today on uneven bars and with Johnson on beam. “I thought it would be a pretty good score for her.”

Liukin dismissed the notion that her start value – the degree of difficultly for a gymnast’s routine, used by judges to compute scores – wasn’t high enough.

“If you look at my skills and if you look at pretty much everybody else, it kind of looks like I have easier skills, but it’s the combinations,” Liukin said. “The combinations are what give me the higher start value. I don’t throw big tricks like Shawn does, so it might not be as appealing or wowing.

“I felt like I did a better routine than I did in the all-around, but I got a little bit of a lower score. It could just be from how they judge, a little stiffer. There’s nothing you can control about the scores.”

 

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