China's hero, its DiMaggio, falls before race even begins

China's hero, its DiMaggio, falls before race even begins

It's a question a billion stunned Chinese are asking themselves on Monday, as Liu, the national hero and defending Olympic 110-meter hurdles champion, pulled out of the Games without clearing a barrier.


A previously unreported chronic injury to his right heel felled him, and he ripped off his competition number and limped off the track after a competitor's false start in the first-round heat.

At that moment, 13 minutes before noon on a bright, lovely summer day, more than 90,000 spectators at National Stadium -- who seconds before had been chanting "Chi-na" and buzzing with anticipation -- fell into stunned silence. Many began to weep.


For them, the most anticipated sports event of the Olympics was over before it began. In a dramatic news conference with Liu's two coaches, one of them, Sun Haiping, broke down and sobbed uncontrollably when asked about Liu's mental state after the race.


"I hope our media friends will understand," said Feng Shuyong, who is the national team's track coach. "This is hard on all of us."


The lanky, ebullient 25-year-old from Shanghai has borne the hopes of the entire country ever since he stunned the world by winning the first track-and-field gold medal for China at the 2004 Games in Athens. During the following years the pressure intensified on Liu when he set a world record in 2006 and captured a world championship in 2007. Liu became more than an athlete; he became a generational symbol of a rising China that commands respect in industry, commerce, art and now sports.


Yes, Yao Ming is celebrated here. But in China, "Liu is like Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods," says his international manager, Mark Wetmore of Global Athletics. "Somebody who is recognized and admired by people who aren't even sports fans." His face and physique adorn monstrous billboards across the country, and the state TV stations have been running hour-long documentaries about him throughout the Olympics.


And because of his connection with a generation of youth that is changing China's perception in the world, he might be something even more iconic -- its Joe DiMaggio.


"He has had great achievements," Feng said. "But it has been difficult for him, too. Even though he does not go out often, wherever he goes, he sees his own picture in the streets. There is great pressure. He withstands psychological pressure no other athlete can withstand."


But on Monday, Liu's heel could not withstand the pressure exerted by hurdling at a world-class level. In the previous heat Terrence Trammell, who Liu beat by a whisker in Athens, pulled a hamstring and fell to the track in agony. He ran in Lane 2, the same lane Liu was about to use.


Liu stalked nervously around the starting blocks when he first set foot on the track, then got in the blocks for a practice start. He jumped two hurdles at high speed, then skirted the third before taking a knee on the track and grabbing his right heel. The crowd didn't seem to notice, but Liu limped slightly back to the blocks and stretched gingerly while others in his heat bounced up and down in preparation. When he was announced to the crowd, the normally playful Liu didn't even wave.



Finally, when the gun went off and a false start was called on a competitor, Liu fired out of the blocks for one step, limped a couple more steps with his weight on his left foot, turned around and exited the track through a tunnel.


The crowd couldn't believe it, standing stunned and still. Some began walking, downcast, for the exits of the ultramodern Bird's Nest. "He was very depressed," Feng said.


On Monday coaches said the injury, described as an inflamed Achilles' tendon and a bone growth on the right heel, was something Liu had battled for years. "It was a problem before Athens," Sun said. It acted up again last Saturday. They tried treatment, but on the warm-up track before his heat, the pain intensified. "It's on his takeoff foot," Feng said. "There's a lot of stress on that area."


All season, the track world wondered about Liu's condition. A hamstring problem forced him to pull out of New York's Reebok Grand Prix event in May, and Liu hasn't raced all summer. His official Web site on Saturday said the hamstring was still bothering him. But coaches insisted on Monday that he'd recovered from the hammy.


One questioner at the packed news conference, attended by several hundred mostly Chinese media, demanded to know why the team "didn't prepare the Chinese people" by informing them that this might happen?


"At the time," Feng answered, "nobody knew he couldn't compete today."


The pullout will surely encourage speculation that the pressure on Liu to win gold was simply too much, especially in the face of his main competitor, Dayron Robles. This summer while Liu was sidelined, the Cuban broke Liu's world record by .01 seconds, hurdling in a time of 12.87. Wetmore said such talk is unfounded.


"He's always thrived under pressure," Wetmore said. "It's awful. It's just an unfortunate injury at the worst possible time."

DiMaggio, too, had chronic bone spurs in his heel, an injury that made him more human to the public, and even became a touchstone in Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea." That was before Marilyn Monroe, and a certain song from "The Graduate" soundtrack immortalized him further.


It remains to be seen whether they'll be writing novels and songs about Liu.


At the very least, though, Liu's coach thinks the public will show sympathy for the man who gave it so much to feel good about in 2004, and has fed its hopes ever since. Feng cited a poll earlier this year that showed 60 percent of the public would understand if Liu didn't win gold. "I think they will show understanding of this."

But, for now, after four years of staring at its national icon, a nation of 1.3 billion people must turn its eyes elsewhere.


Liu Xiang has left and gone away.