China: Great pity for Liu’s Achilles tendon · Global Voices
Bob Chen

The national hero, world champion of the 110-metre hurdles in Athens Olympics, Liu Xiang, quitted the game dramatically this morning due to his inflamed tendon.
BEIJING (AP) — Defending Olympic champion Liu Xiang of China pulled out of the 110-meter hurdles Monday, walking away from the blocks after coming up lame during a false start.
Before the game was going to start, in blows of exclamations, Liu attempted to adjust himself by running over past 2 hurdles. But soon he stopped, bending his brows painfully. After another racer’s fall start and as the game’s going to start again, Liu quitted. The stadium burst into a sea of shock, regret and sorrow, then into silence.
Actually, the ominous sign has been spotted yesterday. Sun Haiping, Liuxiang’s coach, revealed that Liu’s heel was aching during the training on 16th. However, though Liu’s injury was confirmed, most Chinese tried to believe it’s simply a smoke bomb.
In Fanfou.com, the Chinese twitter, sea of comments emerged soon after Liu left his lane with a painful expression.
1-lin   11:56
这次奥运会没有什么比刘翔更让我心痛
Nothing in the 2008 Games could sting me more seriously than the pulling-out of Liu Xiang
阡陌   11:58
亿万人的心，被刘翔的退赛掏空了，没有刘翔的奥运会遗憾吗？没有刘翔的鸟巢会寂寞吗？
The hearts of millions of people were emptied by Liu Xiang’s withdrawal. Will the Olympics be a pity without Liu Xiang? Will the “bird nest” without Liu Xiang be lonely?
And now people found all the athletes appeared in Adidas’ lately advertisement were met with unexpected adversities and bad luck.
Mololo 12:19
阿迪达斯那奥运广告真是个无敌诅咒。
The Adidas Olympics commercial is really a super curse.
China’s women volleyball team, football player Zhengzhi, and now Liu Xiang, seemed to be all its victims.
Some blamed Liu Xiang like this:
海蓝 12:21
刘翔,你没倒在赛道上.却倒在了奥运精神下.
Liu Xiang, you didn’t fall on the race track, but failed under the Olympics spirit.
But 微笑綻放 rebutted as many agreed to:                     12:20
体育竞技本来就是这样，你ＴＭ一群什么都不懂的就只会怪别人，有本事你们上我看看。人家好你们就夸，人家伤了尽力了退出了，你们看金牌梦无望了就骂。你们干脆把奥运会改命叫抢金牌大赛好了。
That’s how the sport race is like! You these guys without a bit of knowledge know only how to blame others! You exclaimed when he excelled, but blamed when you see the dream of gold medal is lost. What about renaming the Olympics as a gold-medal-rob game?
But a netizen referred the withdrawal as a scheme
这一招实在是高
这几天我一直在想罗伯斯实力如何强劲,已经超过了刘翔,刘翔如何应对,如果输了(很大可能),商业价值必定大打折扣,人气肯定一落千丈,如果我是刘翔,该当如何?
谁知出现这种结果,这是刘翔所能做出并得到最大利益的结果,赢得了大家的同情,并保住了自己的人气,最重要的是,商业价值.
让人不能不佩服他身后的团队,实在是佩服(真心话,毕竟是同行)!
What a wonder plot it is!
I have been considering how strong Robles is in these days, much stronger than Liuxiang. And how should Liu deal with this? If he lost the game, very probably, then his commercial value would of course slump, as would his popularity. What should I do if I were him?
And the result today is what Liu can do to reach his max profit. He retained people’s compassion and his popularity, and the most important, commercial value.
I have to admire the team behind him.
And the hottest tickets of hurdle final were now on sale on the internet.
Whatever the voices are, there are always people standing firmly behind Liu.
小凤儿 said on Fanfou:
我们都应该有颗宽容的心，刘翔虽然退出北京奥运会，但他依然是我们心目中的冠军。
We should all have a lenient heart. Though he quits the Beijing Olympics, he’s still the champion in out hearts.