As soon as hurdler Liu Xiang, obviously in pain, yanked off his competition tag and walked out of the Bird’s Nest—dashing the hopes of a nation of 1.3 billion—Chinese friends began text-messaging me. “China’s just like Liu Xiang: Can’t run anymore”, commented one. When I asked why he thought that, my friend SMS’ed back, “Badly hurt from the past and too much pressure on him…not enjoying the pure fun of sports anymore. But it’s good 2 stop 4 awhile to take it slow and do it rite.”
In the end, his injuries—and perhaps the intense burden of China's gold-medal aspirations—got the better of Liu. He grimaced with discomfort even as he settled into the starting block of his 110m hurdles heat Monday. He stopped after a false start, stumbled forward for a few steps, clutched his leg, and then walked out of the stadium to a stunned silence from the expectant audience. China’s Great Hope had pulled out of the competition that had represented China’s best hope of an athletics gold medal. Not just his many fans but also Chinese security guards, journalists, and even his coach Sun Haiping broke down and wept with disappointment at Liu’s withdrawal.
Liu's stunning pull-out saddened many Chinese. The hopes of the entire nation had been riding on Liu, who came out of relative obscurity to win the gold medal at Athens in the 110 meter hurdles—probably the most unexpected of the 32 golds that China snagged at the 2004 Games. Never before had a Chinese man struck gold in a track and field event, and he quickly became the nation’s most famous athlete, more deified even than hoops celebrity Yao Ming.
It’s hard to overestimate how badly his compatriots wanted to see Liu repeat his golden performance on home turf. In a survey of more than 1000 Chinese respondents at the end of 2007, the majority said witnessing Liu win gold in the Bird’s Nest this August was their number one Olympic dream. Chinese columnist Ramond Zhou, who contributes to the official English-language China Daily, explained it to me this way shortly before the Games kicked off: “I only care about Liu Xiang. His winning the gold would be like Obama winning the U.S. presidency. It’s about shattering the stereotype that Asians can’t win track and field sports. People say that because Chinese don't eat so much beef that they don't have stamina—so therefore must rely on skill." Liu was supposed to put that stereotype to rest.
But at least for now that dream has died, leaving a lot of soul-searching in its place. People are beginning to question whether it was unhealthy to burden Liu, 25, with such heavy medal hopes -- and whether it was a sign of misguided old-school priorities to make him the symbol of an entire nation's new-found international clout and success. Even before his dramatic withdrawal today, Liu has had a troubled year. On May 31 he withdrew from the Reebok Grand Prix due to a tight hamstring. A few days later—on June 8, in fact, though the numeral “8” wasn’t so lucky for Liu in that instance—he was disqualified from the Prefontaine Classic Grand Prix due to a false start.
Then at the IAAF Grand Prix in Europe, 21-year-old Cuban hurdler Dayron Robles shaved one-hundredth of a second off the 12.88 second world record set by Liu in July 2006. Many analysts—including my colleague Quindlen Krovatin in this July 1 post in our "Countdown to Beijing" blog—began speculating whether Liu could overcome such setbacks—not to mention the intense psychological pressures which made the possibility of losing face in front of a home crowd so much more unbearable than the fear of losing a contest overseas.
Liu had not competed since May 23 due to a hamstring injury. But that injury had healed. Instead it was Saturday's recurrence of an inflamed Achilles' tendon—a condition that has plagued Liu for half a dozen years—that brought him "almost intolerable" pain, according to track association head Feng Shuyong. Domestic media also reported that Liu's mother worried he was getting muscle cramps from training too intensively—and that she was phoning him every day out of concern
Though most of his fans were devastated, some Chinese seemed to think perhaps Liu had become too famous and too spoiled too fast. Local media reported that lighting in the Bird's Nest National Stadium was readjusted to shine less brightly after Liu’s coach complained that the lights were too intense for his famous star. We'll bring you more on Chinese reaction; not everyone had been obsessed with Liu's winning gold. “In any case, Liu wouldn’t have won had he competed,” Beijing graphic artist Lu Bin told my colleague Jonathan Ansfield today. Lu took Liu’s pull-out in stride: “Of [all] the big sports stars, Liu Xiang’s the one who annoys me most. I bet now he’ll slowly switch over to the entertainment world.” After all, Liu's face has been plastered over gigantic billboards advertising Visa and other big name brands, and Liu was widely regarded to be the poster-boy of the 2008 Olympics. One way or another, it looks like Liu will be remembered for a long time to come.
