BEIJING — Nastia Liukin fulfilled her family's dream and legacy Friday and maybe even kept her mother from wandering the streets.

Anna Liukin, who couldn't bring herself to watch her daughter compete all these years, can come in now.

Nastia won gold, mom. Have a seat.

Capping off her performance with the floor exercise of her 18-year-old life, Liukin held off her biggest rival, Shawn Johnson, and China's Yang Yilin to win the gymnastics all-around.

Only once in the last year had Liukin beaten Johnson, but it didn't even come down to the last event Friday.

After the floor exercise, which vaulted her into second, Johnson embraced Liukin, who whispered in the 16-year-old's ear, "Good job."

When the Olympic roommates parted, Johnson barely held back tears.

She knew.

Four years after Carly Patterson's triumph in Athens, the center of the gymnastics universe remains Collin County, Texas.

No one would have been more surprised than the hosts if the outcome had come out any differently. In the typically painstaking preparations hours before Friday's competition, flag bearers marched, standards ascended and two national anthems played for the sound check: China's and the Star Spangled Banner.

Once it would have seemed impossible to consider that Eastern European competitors would be knocked off the medal stand. Ever since Olga Korbut turned the tide of gymnastics from artistic elegance to athletic spunk in Munich, no one in the West seemed to mind all that much. Nadia Comaneci assumed her mantle in '76 as the parade continued.

Even when Mary Lou Retton won in Los Angeles — and beamed from your Wheaties box at breakfast — her performance in '84 rated an asterisk:

No Soviet Union or East Germany, part of the tit-for-tat boycott after the U.S. passed on Moscow.

But Retton's gold proved that the balance of power slowly was starting to shift, a transfer that had begun when the Karolyis packed up for Texas.

The line of Karolyi-influenced U.S. gymnasts ran from Phoebe Mills to Kim Zmeskal to Shannon Miller to Dominique Moceanu and limping Kerri Strug.

Patterson capped the U.S.' progression from wannabes to world-beaters when she won gold in Athens.

Still, for all the leaps and bounds made by the U.S. since Korbut started a revolution 36 years ago and won the hearts and minds of the West, the U.S. medal count going into Friday's all-around, the pinnacle of the sport, remained a bit spare:

Retton's gold in '84. Miller's silver in '92. Patterson's gold in '04.

Seven Olympics.

Three medals.

And now look where we are: A pair of Americans teenagers from disparate backgrounds and with different styles, going head-to-head for gold.

The competition didn't exactly start auspiciously for Liukin. On the vault, her weakest event, she landed safely. But her score was a low 15.025, which seemed a little suspicious.

If Liukin were going to make up the difference, it would have to be on the uneven bars, her specialty.

She came in with a 16.65, the score a tad low for U.S. tastes, but ahead of Johnson and right where her father wanted her going into the balance beam.

Up first, Johnson teetered after a full twist and double clutched on her dismount. The smile that had so captivated millions seemed taut, less confident.

Liukin, competing last, made her statement. Lithe and elegant, she performed flawlessly. From that point, it was all but over, and another generation was complete.

Anna once told The Dallas Morning News that, in her family, there were two sides: Her husband's, a silver medal winner in the all-around in Seoul for the Soviet Union, and there was her own story, a failure to make the Olympic team that nevertheless made her "a better person, and stronger."

Now there's a third chapter in the Liukin story, a golden one. As any parent knows, you couldn't ask for a better ending.