Fresh off her star-making turn in the Beijing Olympics, 18-year-old Nastia Liukin is celebrating like a champion — by hanging out with hot women and making a guest appearance on a CW show. Liukin was spotted attending a runway show at New York’s Bryant Park with injured tennis star Maria Sharapova, and the two were reportedly getting along quite well.

Liukin looked right at home in the high-fashion world with a dress that matched her gold medals (more photos after the jump).

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As everyone knows, the true reason behind waking up for all of those early morning practices leading up to Beijing isn’t the promotional deals, or the SNL-hosting gigs, or just the overall sense that you’re making your country proud. It’s the ladies. So it’s no shocker to see America’s Champion Michael Phelps already partaking in the spoils of international conquest:

The photos come from Neel Shah, a writer over at RADAR, who was in Vegas covering a story when he happened upon Phelps in the Palms Casino. There, he caught the 14-time-gold medalist “massively skeeving on girls at the Playboy Club”:

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Well here’s a completely unsubstantiated rumor we’re more than happy to start: Now that Carmelo Anthony got his gold medal in Beijing, he wants to quit jumping around in front of thousands of fans a night and start focusing on his one true dream: playing on the Olympic handball team!

Fine, we’ll be honest: There’s not much real substance behind this one. But in an interview with the ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS, Carmelo did give the following cryptic quote that hints at his pursuit of a more manicurial passion: “I wanna play handball, man. The U.S. needs to get a handball team. I’m pretty sure we can get some guys to go out there and play handball.”

Told ya. He’s totally going to retire!

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In a shocking scandalous expose, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED have documents proving that two members of the 2008 Jamaican Olympic track team received shipments for “performance-enhancing drugs through an Internet distribution network.” Fortunately, neither one of them is Usain Bolt. In fact, both of them are hippoty-hoppity hurdlers!

The two players in question are Delloreen Ennis-London, a 33-year-old who finished 5th in the 100-meter hurdles in Beijing, and 25-year-old Adrian Findlay, who was an alterate for the 400-meter hurdles. Apparently, steroids don’t make that much of a difference.

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• His bloodlust not satisfied with a blowout win over Florida Atlantic, EVERY DAY SHOULD BE SATURDAY spots Texas Longhorns defensive coordinator Will Muschamp drawing some blood on his own.

We swear we’ve seen (and heard) this kind of sideline excitement before.

• WITH LEATHER catches Cincinnati’s mascot Bear-ly avoiding a parachuting Cat-astrophe.

• THE SPORTING BLOG shares news that the parents of Tony Stewart are worried that the womanizing NASCAR star’s special little friend might someday “rot off“.

• THE BIG LEAD elects to examine the unfolding political war of words between Gilbert Arenas & Baron Davis.

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Sad news out of Ohio this morning (well, sadder than the usual Ohio-related fare, anyway): Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh lost yesterday in the AVP Crocs Cup Shootout, the U.S. Open of the volleyball circuit*. Which means the gold-medal-winning duo dropped their first match in more than a year.

The span stretches 112 victories and 19 titles. And in a coincidence that will certainly make for a wonderful twist when their story is inevitably sold to LIFETIME television, May-Treanor and Walsh fell to Elaine Youngs and Nicole Branagh, the same team who last beat them on Aug. 19, 2007. Mind-boggling, I know.

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Oprah’s army doesn’t get many opportunities to see their goddess in pant suits in the flesh.  The only tickets harder to get for TV performances in Chicago history have been filmings of “The Bozo Show” and the Dirty Hippie section of Chicago Stadium for the 1968 Democratic Convention.

(Huge sports fan.  See?)

When Oprah announced she would fete dozens of American Olympians (with the best marketing deals, sob stories, and medal collections) on Wednesday in Chicago’s Millennium Park, the legion of Oprahlytes descended on the park Saturday for the chance at free tickets.

They shamed Krzyzewskiville with their power and organization.  The line stretched for six full city blocks and could have gone more.  Just wait ’till they mob the park Wednesday for an estimated 2,000 lawn seats.  Make that 8,000 when stacked like cordwood.
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• Ana Ivanovic gets bounced from the second round of the U.S. Open by the 188th-ranked player in the world.

Well, at least Ana is still an alluring eyeful.

• A jerk who jotted down racist emails to Derek Jeter will be jammed into a jail cell for the next four years.

• Guess Beijing wasn’t the only Olympics to have pseudo-realistic ceremonies - isn’t that right, Sydney Symphony Orchestra?

• One Florida Gators running back doesn’t find his sex ed classes all that stimulating.

• Adios, Chad Johnson - Bienvenidos, Chad Ocho Cinco!

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At the rate things are going, we’re soon going to find out that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny aren’t real and are just made up characters created to help sell toys and chocolate eggs. Remember a few weeks a go when there was a bit of an uproar over the fact the Chinese used CGI to enhance the opening ceremonies, and also had a little girl lip-sync “Ode to the Motherland” because the other girl was too ugly? Well, it turns out the Chinese weren’t doing anything new.

It seems that faking part of the opening ceremonies is quickly becoming a tradition, as it turns out not everything during the opening ceremony of the 2000 games in Sydney was real either. Much like your girlfriend, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra faked their performance as well.

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• We proudly(?) present photographic proof of the facial pummeling taken by Dennis Northcutt’s pregnant girlfriend.

• Tennis star Novak Djokovic is more than happy to score this kind of love - pretty Paraguay Olympian Leryn Franco.

• Despite the chance of a career-ending injury, Shawne Merriman feels the “knee-d” to play in 2008.

• A 12-year-old female hockey player vows to lace ‘em up again after suffering an on-ice stroke.

• The lowest-rated player in Madden 09 gets to prove his stuff on the field for real tonight.

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