Meet Liu Xiang At 21 He Is China's Cathy Freeman, A Young Man Carrying A Nation

Sun Herald

Sunday August 3, 2008

By JOHN GARNAUT BEIJING

LIU XIANG will rise from the starting blocks at the Birds Nest Stadium in less than three weeks, carrying more pressure than any athlete in any sport has ever known.

His shoulders will bear the grievances, aspirations and infatuations of 1.3billion Chinese people while his legs power across 110metres and glide over 10 hurdles in a little under 13 seconds.

Sport has never previously been a Chinese preoccupation. But Chinese people everywhere are rallying behind the Beijing Olympics and projecting much of their hopes and new-found pride on one man.

"When Liu won the gold medal in Athens I had tears streaming down my face," Sue Li, a 21-year-old insurance saleswoman in Beijing, said. "He is beautiful. I love him. I sooo want him to win."

Liu's face is plastered across billboards, television ads and magazine covers everywhere. He lends his good looks to endorse at least 25 products - with most of the money going back to the state system that nurtured him.

But Liu would rather be without the attention. "It upsets me sometimes," he said. "In my heart I would like to feel ordinary, and it's hard to feel like this now."

Recently Liu has gone to ground, mixing only with his team of coaches and sports scientists, his family and a dozen track friends that the Government relocated from Shanghai to keep him company in Beijing.

Perhaps only Cathy Freeman can know how it feels to carry such national expectations on your home turf. And yet Freeman was "only" carrying a national population of 21million - in a country that tries to draw a line between politics and sport.

Chinese leaders have been quick to admonish the world for "politicising" the Olympics. Within China, however, the Chinese Communist Party is treating these Olympic Games as the most important political event in decades.

Liu's victory would be physical confirmation that China had thrown off the "weak man of Asia" yoke that it wore through a period that official histories call the Century of National Humiliation.

"We have to have a good Olympics," said Vice-Premier Wang Qishan, when he was still the mayor of Beijing last year. "Otherwise not only will our generation lose face but also our ancestors."

Liu is a product of China's Soviet-model recruitment and training regime involving 24,000 sports primary schools, 2600 sports high schools and, more recently, Project 119 - the "Strategic Plan for Winning Olympic Medals in 2008". The subheading reads: "Winning Pride at the Olympics".

The strategy is to pour the nation's resources into medals-rich sports in which China had no history, such as rowing. (The medals target was amended from 119 to 122 when the International Olympic Committee added two new events to the Beijing program.)

It's working. In Athens, China pushed ahead of Russia and Australia to take second place on the gold-medal ladder. In Beijing there is every chance China will overtake the United States and lay claim to being the sporting champion of the world.

If the size of China's gold-medal haul is classified as a "political priority", then Liu's gold is a greater political priority than all of the rest.

President Hu Jintao personally handed the Olympic torch - known as the "Sacred Flame" in China - to Liu in Tiananmen Square. On Friday, the 24-year-old from Shanghai is a hot favourite to carry the red flag ahead of 638 other Chinese athletes into the Olympic stadium.

Last year Liu's coach, Sun Haiping, explained to journalists what China's peculiar mix of politics and sport means for his protege: "Officials told us if Liu could not win a gold medal in Beijing, all of his previous achievements would become meaningless."

Liu is more than tall and physically proficient. He is a superb technician who glides over hurdles without contact and without breaking stride.

He has poise, elegance and a natural self-assurance that China seldom sees in the athletes that survive the country's sometimes authoritarian training regime.

But gold is far from assured. Liu is competing against the powerful Athens silver medallist, Terrence Trammell, who can run a full third of a second faster than Liu over a flat 100metres. He is also facing 21-year-old Dayron Robles, from Guantanamo, Cuba, who sliced two-hundredths of a second off Liu's world record only six weeks ago.

OLYMPICS QUIZ

WARM UP for all the action of Beijing 2008 by testing your Games knowledge with our 100 questions on Olympics history. Race to pages 86-87 for the quiz. Find more of our Road To Beijing coverage on page 85.

MUST-SEE EVENTS

1 MEN'S 1500M FREESTYLE, midday, August 17 Grant Hackett going for his third straight. Alex Popov says winning one is famous; two is greatness; three is history.

2 MEN'S MARATHON, 9.30am, August 24 For purists, this remains the race. Haile Gebrselassie has pulled out. Big chance for the rest. Don't choke - on the smog.

3 MEN'S 100M SPRINT, 12.30am, August 17 Bigger than big. The title of fastest man on the planet is up for grabs. It will be must-see TV. All 9.7 seconds of it.

4 WOMEN'S 100M FREESTYLE, 1pm, August 15 Libby Trickett was favourite in Athens. And an emotional wreck. Failed to reach the final. This is her chance.

5 MEN'S 4x100M MEDLEY RELAY, 12.55pm, August 17 It's not about the race. It's about Michael Phelps. This is his last race - and could be gold number eight.

6 MEN'S 110M HURDLES, 11.45pm, August 21 Liu Xiang was China's first track and field gold medallist at Athens. His defence will bring the nation to a standstill.

7 MEN'S 800M TRACK, 9.30pm, August 23 Sudanese Abubaker Kaki is the 800m junior world record-holder. He's only 19. And some story if he wins.

8 MEN'S 100M FREESTYLE, 12.45pm, August 14 Eamon Sullivan and Alain Bernard are the giants. Ian Thorpe wanted to win an Olympic 100m title for the prestige.

9 MEN'S BASKETBALL, 4.30pm, August 24 The US Dream Team stay in a swish hotel instead of the athletes' village. They must win. No pressure.

10 MEN'S LONG JUMP, 10.10pm, August 18 Irving Saladino is attempting to win Panama's first gold. One for the battlers.

© 2008 Sun Herald

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