The Fall of an Icon

Despite the fact that China has had it's way with gold medal's in this years Olympics, dominating events ranging from badminton to archery to weightlifting, today was a sad sporting day for the nation. China's biggest track star, Liu Xiang, was forced to retire due to injury, and the fall out has been fierce, fierce enough in fact to make me want to write about track.

In order to understand the importance of this occurrence it's important to understand Liu Xiang's status in China. He is(maybe was?) a brand here, enormously popular. To find a similarly popular athlete in the US we would have to be talking of the likes of Lebron James or Dwayne Wade here. He is probably China's second most well known athlete, right along side Yao Ming, and more popular, in some ways, than Yao because he is seen as better looking and more exciting. Don't let that photo above fool you, despite that somewhat questionable complexion, Liu Xiang is a bit of a sex symbol, or whatever a sex symbol is here, but that's a discussion for another day.

He burst onto the scene winning gold in the Athens Olympics, and then later set a world record in his event 2006, rocketing to super-stardom in a country starved for track success. The event that is Liu Xiang's bread and butter? the 110M hurdles. That's right folks, he's a hurdler! Talk about sex appeal!! Now I think we can all understand how a track star can stand in the company of Lebron James and Kobe, right？ I mean, His timing is flawless!! I ran track in high school and from what I can remember, while some athletes might have gone out to party after their respective competitions, 110 meter hurdlers, along with their equally nimble counterparts in the triple jump, were much more likely to be preparing their protractor for the upcoming math meet rather than doing anything with a member of the opposite sex. Regardless, He's huge here, mainly because he excels at a sprinting event, which China and Asia in general have traditionally struggled in.

Media in all regions are guilty of hero worship, exalting athlete's accomplishments to the point where people, the athletes themselves included, start to believe they are some sort of god. I'm reminded of this every time I read an article now about Michael Phelps, who has Americans saying he is the "best athlete in the history of the species," and some Chinese fearing him like he's f-'ing Captain America, or the Universal Soldier(Dolph Lundgren you stud). (incidentally to those wondering, I was narrowly edged out by Phelps in our own private six-pack contest last Tuesday. Who'd have known that years of intense Olympic swim training would be more effective than my liter of Mt. Dew a day strategy.)

I know that people love to look up to others as something more than human, but seeing the reaction to Liu Xiang's withdrawal was still mind blowing to me. Liu Xiang actually lined up for the event, but was visibly in pain, it appeared he had forced himself out there bc he knew the pressure of a nation was on his shoulders. The race began with a false start and Liu Xiang, as he shot off the blocks immediately started limping, and then disgustedly pulled his numbers off his legs and stormed into the locker room. That is when the mayhem began. The crowd was astounded. A foreigner reporter later noted in a press conference dedicated strictly to Liu Xiang (nationally televised press conference) that multiple fans began crying in the stands upon learning he had withdrawn. Reporters, somewhat regretfully it seemed, supported his decision on CCTV. Meanwhile, other people in less public places did what I assume many Chinese were doing at the time, and that is complaining about what a wuss he was. Two friends of mine later told me about how the men and women of their workplace were talking about how he should have persevered through the race. This is my favorite part of sports, it's why I love that there is still talk radio. I love how fat, out of shape people can, from the comfort of their office, contemptuously slander an athlete who has trained diligently for years, all because that athlete (who themselves had so much more invested in their performance) did not for that moment give them the pleasure they had desired. Had Liu Xiang won the gold those same people would have been psyched for like 45 minutes and still gone home and hated themselves at the end of the day... but I digress...

The fallout didn't just end with nameless people in the stands(or cubicles), a field reporter reporting on the scene actually broke down into tears while reporting on national television. They had to cut the report short because of her outburst. The nightly news dedicated a 5-10 minute segment on Liu Xiang at night, noting that President Hu Jin Tao actually had released a public statement consoling Liu in the afternoon. The general atmosphere has calmed somewhat and I can assume most people won't continue to be (openly)angry with Liu Xiang, but you can bet that his marketability has been forever damaged by this one event.

It would seem that China would have so many heroes after this Olympics they would be able to overlook one getting injured and still trying to perform. Still it is so interesting to continually see how people allow themselves to get so wrapped up and depend on other people to provide an image of success for themselves. As always this kind of phenomena only becomes more clear and powerful in a country with such an enormous population. Still, and most importantly, I am sure that somewhere there is a 200 pound Chinese woman ready to take gold in Judo and take Liu Xiang's place as poster boy/girl for Coca-Cola China, and the Meng Niu Yogurt company.