The Duniyah Cricket Blog

To those of us outside China, the name, Liu Xiang, may not sound familiar but next Thursday the world’s most populous nation will stop to watch the defining moment of his career.  Every 4 years the Olympics makes and breaks thousands of athletes’ dreams and in Athens in 2004, a Chinese hero was made.  Since then Xiang has achieved much and established his legend so much so that in Beijing, he is the face of the Olympics.  However next week his legacy will be decided as a country expects and demands nothing less than gold.

Before 2004, China had never won a gold medal in a men’s athletics event. Then the (at the time) unknown Liu came along and not only won the gold in the Men’s 110m Hurdles final but also equalled the world record which had stood for over 10 years.  Subsequently he has won 6 out 7 major finals establishing a reputation for finding his best on the biggest stage.  Today his legs are valued at $13.5 million and he is one of the most popular athletes in China.  Most experts consider Xiang to be the only realistic gold medal hope for Chinese athletics leading to comparisons with Australia’s Cathy Freeman from 2000. Her advice to Liu is to consider his race as ‘just another day at the office’.  The only differences are she had never faced the hero worship of over a billion fans when she left the blocks in Sydney.

One of Xiang’s biggest hurdles (excuse the pun) will be overcoming his form, which is poor to say the least.  After winning the World Indoor Championships 5 months ago, he has struggled from a hamstring injury  and he has false started in his last 3 races.  As if beating the nerves and the pressure were not enough, Xiang faces a major challenge in the form of Cuba’s Dayron Robles who broke his world record 2 months ago.  In a similar situation to Xiang in 2004, the spotlight will be off Robles.  The carefully planned Beijing script will only give him a minor role but Robles has the speed and ability to gatecrash China’s biggest party.

For China this will be the biggest event of the Olympics even overshadowing the Men’s 100m (hyped as the closest race ever).  Ironically it also happens the result is the one thing the Chinese officials cannot control during these 2 weeks.  The State General Administration of Sport has told Liu’s coach that failure will make his entire career meaningless.  A coach of the Chinese rowing team said that the attitude from his seniors is ‘1 gold equals 1000 silvers.’  In a country where a vast number of people have all or nothing, it is the all or nothing attitude which means next Thursday Liu will either be a nobody or the King of Beijing.