This was the Great Wail of China. As hurdler Liu Xiang hobbled out of the Bird's Nest Stadium -- volunteers wept openly, a female journalist cried in the mixed zone and his coach sobbed at the most extraordinary press conference of the Olympics -- a nation shared his pain. "We were looking forward to watching him run," said Wang Qingchi, a man in his 60s who lives near the Bird's Nest. "In competitions there are victories and defeats; you never know if he can win the gold medal or not. If he competed, we wouldn't have minded even if he had lost. But he didn't even race. This is a big let down." There was no athlete -- not Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt or any pixie gymnast -- who meant more to these Olympics than the 110-meter hurdler from Shanghai. To some observers the Olympics are basically a track meet surrounded by the other carnival acts, and squarely in the middle of the big top, the epicenter of the Games, was a 25-year-old Chinese hurdler who did not make it over even one hurdle. He was not done in by the super weight of expectations and pressure that had haunted him the very moment he had breasted the finish line in Athens as the first Chinese track-and-field gold medalist, but by the all-too-human breakdown of his body. Liu had a flare-up of Achilles tendinitis he's battled off and on for six years and pain from a protruding bone in his right heel over the weekend. That forced him out of his first-round heat, despite his ...
Anytime
This was the Great Wail of China. As hurdler Liu Xiang hobbled out of the Bird's Nest Stadium -- volunteers wept openly, a female journalist cried in the mixed zone and his coach sobbed at the most extraordinary press conference of the Olympics -- a nation shared his pain. "We were looking forward to watching him run," said Wang Qingchi, a man in his 60s who lives near the Bird's Nest. "In competitions there are victories and defeats; you never know if he can win the gold medal or not. If he competed, we wouldn't have minded even if he had lost. But he didn't even race. This is a big let down." There was no athlete -- not Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt or any pixie gymnast -- who meant more to these Olympics than the 110-meter hurdler from Shanghai. To some observers the Olympics are basically a track meet surrounded by the other carnival acts, and squarely in the middle of the big top, the epicenter of the Games, was a 25-year-old Chinese hurdler who did not make it over even one hurdle. He was not done in by the super weight of expectations and pressure that had haunted him the very moment he had breasted the finish line in Athens as the first Chinese track-and-field gold medalist, but by the all-too-human breakdown of his body. Liu had a flare-up of Achilles tendinitis he's battled off and on for six years and pain from a protruding bone in his right heel over the weekend. That forced him out of his first-round heat, despite his ...