2008 Olympic all-around champion Nastia Liukin visited St. Paul, Minnesota this Mother’s Day to walk in the Twin Cities Susan B. Komen Race for the Cure with Team Visa Championships to highlight the importance of breast cancer awareness and promote the 2011 Visa Championships, which will be held in St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center Aug. 17-20. Liukin and her team of 50 members walked the 5k race, which was held at the Mall of America and featured more than 50 thousand participants, wearing distinctive clothing.

She wore a black GK Elite warm-up jacket with a pink rinestone breast cancer ribbon on its back, which is going to be auctioned off by Minnesota’s NBC Kare 11 with the proceeds benefiting cancer research. The team wore Visa Championships t-shirts.

Following the walk, which took the team a little under an hour to complete, Liukin visited Rosedale Mall to sign autographs and watch gymnastics demonstrations by Jets Gymnastics, Midwest Gymnastics, and Twin City Twistars Gymnastics. She concluded her day at Mini Hops Gymnastics, who held an open mother-daughter event for a question and answer session with Nastia. She also posed for pictures and signed autographs.


Multi-session and all-session ticket packages for the 2011 Visa Championships are on sale now at the Xcel Energy Center Box Office, Ticketmaster Ticket Centers, charge by phone at 800-745-3000, online at www.ticketmaster.com, or through participating area gymnastics clubs. Fans can select the ticket package that meets their interests.