Monday, August 18, 2008

The Chinese hero is out

Liu Xiang, the hurdler who in China shows up even more than Yao Ming on billboards and in commercials, is out of the 110-meter hurdles in the Olympics.

Liu didn't even get started, pulling up with an injury in the very first round. This is somewhat of a mystery -- Liu has basically disappeared from competition this summer. He won a gold in 2004 in the 110 hurdles to become a national star but his world record has been broken and there is speculation that maybe he did not want to fail in front of the home crowd.

On the other hand, perhaps the injury is legit. In any case, it ends one of the storylines of these Olympics before it ever really began.

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