China’s Liu pulls out of 110m hurdles
Last Updated: Monday, August 18, 2008 | 1:18 AM ET
CBC Sports
Defending Olympic champion Liu Xiang of China left a crowd of 91,000 in stunned silence at Beijing’s National Stadium as he withdrew from the men’s 110-metre hurdles with a right foot injury.
Liu, the former world record holder and China’s biggest track star, winced in pain as he settled into the starting block, slapping the back of his right heel as he tried to deal with the discomfort.
Liu hobbled to the first hurdle as he broke from the block on a false start, removed the number pinned to his shorts and limped out of the stadium.
Liu’s personal coach, Sun Haiping, told reporters afterward that the hurdler has been hampered by a tendon injury for six or seven years.
“We worked hard every day, but the result was as you see and it is really hard to take,” Sun said through a translator.
No runner was disqualified, but Chinese fans stood in stunned silence as Liu’s medal hopes were dashed by injury.
“I feel like I am being fooled,” Yu Zuoliang, a student in Beijing. “What happened to him?”
“I think he may have wanted to win too much and could have caved under the pressure,” said a suspicious He Shen. “The injury may be an excuse.”
Minutes before the race, Liu cleared only two hurdles as he warmed up, pulling up and crouching down to clutch the back of his right heel.
“We have taken an MRI and the problem is in his tendon,” Sun said. “We also have worries about his bones. Liu’s bones in his foot are different from ordinary people. It is larger [and] it has developed into a hard bump.”
Trained in seclusion
Liu, 25, trained in seclusion all summer amid reports that he was desperately trying to recover an inflamed Achilles tendon.
He hasn’t competed in more than two months, since a hamstring injury forced him to pull out of a meet in New York on May 31.
A week later, he was disqualified for a false start at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Ore., and hasn’t raced since.
“First, there are two injuries — one in his leg [hamstring] and one in his foot [tendon]” Sun said. “The injury in his foot was a cumulative injury.
“We don’t know when he was hurt. But it has been a problem for six or seven years. It was a problem before the Athens Games and the injury has been back and forth [since]. It was the main problem with today’s performance.”
Liu won the gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics in a record time of 12.91, and later set the world mark of 12.88 in 2006.
Dayron Robles of Cuba ran 12.87 to break Liu’s world mark on June 12.
Robles, who breezed to victory in Monday’s opening heat in 13.39, is now favoured to win the gold at Beijing.
http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/athletics/story/2008/08/18/olympics-athletics-liu.html
