Xiang's departure brings tears to China

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BEIJING -- Granted, China's state-controlled press is hardly the hard-bitten U.S. bunch, and reporters from many countries cheer their own at the Olympics. But still. Reporters generally weep only when the free food runs out.A translator was banished mid-news conference for failing to translate a coach's remarks quickly or accurately enough. One hates to speculate on her new assignment, but a woman was later overheard asking if she could empty the trash in three languages.China's national hero and top gold medal hope in the marquee event of its first Olympics - track and field - bowed out before running his first heat Monday at the sold-out Bird's Nest, and the country quickly went into shock.Within an hour, the official Xinhua News Agency had posted nine stories on its English language Web site, some of them as short as a single paragraph. The (begin ital) China Daily (end ital) site made it the lead story, just ahead of Russia's promise to withdraw from Georgia.Liu Xiang, who won the first track and field gold medal in China's history four years ago in Athens, was rubbing his right leg and wincing before even setting up in the blocks for his first-round heat in the 110-meter hurdles. When it turned into a false start, he grimaced, tore the lane number patches from his legs and limped off."He has two injuries - one to the leg and one to the foot," Sun Haiping, his coach, reported at an emotional news conference - the one where reporters were weeping - shortly afterward."The one to the leg has been an accumulative injury for years, but it was cured. The major problem for his withdrawal is his heel. I don't know when it was hurt, probably six or seven years ago, before Athens. The injury has been back and forth between intensive training and rest and this is the main problem."Angry messages from disappointed fans appeared almost immediately on Baidu.com, the leading search engine and forum site in China. Australia's (begin ital) Sydney Morning Herald (end ital) reported several were taken down shortly after they appeared, presumably by Chinese government censors. But among those the (begin ital) Herald (end ital) reported were these:"He is a dog.""He is a fake.""He is scared.""I hate him.""He only went out there to show off his shoes."The latter comment was a reference to Liu's sponsorship deal with Nike. He was wearing shiny yellow track shoes with Nike's trademark swoosh in bright red.The pressure on Liu to perform in his home country was intense. Even American Tyson Gay, trying to battle back from his own hamstring injury, mentioned it last week when a Chinese reporter asked what he would say to Liu if he ran into him in the Olympic village."I would probably ask to take a picture with him," Gay said. "And tell him good luck, because I'm pretty sure he has a little bit of pressure on him as well."So much pressure, in fact, that he may have pulled out not because his injuries prevented him from running but because they prevented him from attaining a level of fitness that would have allowed him to win."It is impossible to overstate the amount of pressure that Liu Xiang was under before he withdrew," Jamie Metzl of the New York-based Asia Society wrote to me by E-mail."The hopes of 1.3 billion Chinese people were on his shoulders and, quite literally, weighing him down. As a great runner not at his peak, he had to choose between competing but not winning or withdrawing to save face."China's nothing-less-than gold strategy and billion dollars of funding for athlete development have yielded Olympic results, but have also placed monumental pressure on Chinese athletes to perform, not just for themselves, but for the nation. Liu Xiang is a product of this system, and may also prove to be its victim."This is the downside of a state-run sports program. The glory for the winners is enormous. The shame for the disappointments is devastating. As America's top hope in the 100 meters, Gay felt significant pressure to come back from his injury, but there was no great backlash when he failed to make the final.For Liu, a national hero and still China's greatest hope on the track, the pressure was of a different order of magnitude."Other runners might have just given it their best shot, like Tyson Gay, but this was not an option for Liu because of the broader set of circumstances," Metzl said.Liu did not appear at the news conference, but the state news agency attributed this quote to him:"I feel very sad. I really don't want to quit."It's possible, I guess, that a seven-year-old injury made it impossible for Liu to run. More likely, it was the weight of a billion expectations he knew he could not fulfill.(Liu Xiang writes for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver)