Poor Liu, He Deserved His Shot at Chinese Immortality

You really have to feel for poor Liu Xiang, the world champion Chinese hurdler who more than anyone—more than Yao Ming or diver Guo Jingjing—was the face of these games for the host country. To those of you who haven’t been living here for the past couple of years, it’s hard to describe how omnipresent this guy was in the media. He endorsed virtually everything. Driving back this afternoon from the Bird’s Nest into town I saw his face on billboards no les than six times. I’ve been trying to think of a US or western equivalent who had anything approaching this kind of attention before an Olympics, and am drawing blanks. Try Carl Lewis before LA in 84, that’s about the closest comparison I can come up with—and still you’d have to multiply the media hype by about a factor of ten. Take one example: during the Chinese New Year holidays earlier this year, CCTV, the national state owned network, did reports on this guy in prime time every night for five straight nights. That’s the equivalent of CBS NBC and ABC all doing pieces on a single athlete every night for a week SIX MONTHS BEFORE THE GAMES.
Then, while warming up for a qualifying heat this afternoon in the Bird’s Nest, Liu re injured what has been a chronic, painful problem for him: a heel injury for which he had been treated extensively before the Games. As any jock can tell you, a heel injury for any sport that involves running is bad. (I had plantar fasciitis a couple of years ago and literally couldn’t run for months. Liu’s injury is considerably more painful than that.)
There’s been some loose chatter on various Chinese blogs in the wake of Liu’s withdrawal that somehow he succumbed to all the pressure. I don’t buy it. At least from afar, he seemed to deal with all the attention and intrusiveness with equanimity. He seemed resolute and determined, but not freaked out by carrying the hopes of 1.3 billion people on his shoulders.
The reason he more than anyone else was singled out in these games is that he is a Chinese champion in a sport that China historically has not been competitive in. For all the fervor that sports like badminton and synchronized diving receive, they didn’t bring the anticipation the 110 meter hurdles did because the big boys of the world (as most Chinese would view it , anyway) don’t really give a hoot abut those sports. (And let’s face it, if a badminton champion emerged from the backyard barbecue scene in America) it would warrant one quirky feature on NBC during the Games, and then back to real sports like swimming and basketball. The Chinese for the most part don’t consider themselves FEI REN (literally, flying people, as they call sprinters): the speedsters are usually from the US or UK or Russia or the Caribbean countries that churn out world class sprinters the way China turns out top ranked badminton players: by the dozens. Now he ‘s out, and Beijing is a little deflated today.
Liu’s victory, if it were to come, would unquestionably have been the emotional climax of these Games for a nation whose leadership has decided that whoever wins the most gold medals must by definition be the greatest nation on earth. China will still win the most gold. But Liu’s anticipated victory would have been an unquestioned exclamation point on the home team’s triumph. Now, the emotional pop of China stomping on the rest of the world will be diminished, at least a bit. It would have been fun to see how Liu did. Maybe he’ll hang in until London