Some Hurdles Are Too High

BEIJING

Since the day Beijing was awarded the Olympics, these Games have been about China's national pride. Perhaps only the Chinese can grasp how it feels to have a history that is glorious when measured in millennia, mortifying when measured in centuries and suffused with suffering when measured in recent decades.

For seven years, China has diligently planned and constructed a way to express that vast, squelched national pride. The huge Olympic Green, with its glowing red Bird's Nest and its luminous blue Water Cube, has no rival. The budgetless Opening Ceremonies, with a city of 15 million illuminated by fireworks, was a national statement.

However, over the last four years, one deified athlete has come to symbolize the country in the public mind here: the slim, handsome hurdler Liu Xiang.

For 10 days, this Olympics surpassed itself for glory. No one has ever won as many gold medals at any Games as Michael Phelps. No one has ever run as fast as Usain Bolt.

On the 11th day, out of a clear sky, in a preliminary qualifier for the 110-meter hurdles, we may have seen the saddest and most burdened man in Olympic history: the injured Liu, now buried under 1.3 billion bodies.

For Americans to grasp how Liu felt, his jersey pulled up over his face in shame after an injured Achilles' heel knocked him out of the Games, we must change our frame of reference.

Liu is not just the 2004 Olympic champion and owner of the second-fastest time ever in his event. He wasn't just co-favorite with world record holder Dayron Robles. And he was not simply the only Chinese male to win a gold medal in track and field -- the centerpiece Olympic sport for which 91,000-seat stadiums are built.

Think of Liu another way: At these Games, Liu is China. How it got that way we Westerners may only guess.

But it is unlikely we will ever see an athlete in greater emotional pain, or a country that takes a loss more personally, or a cast of trainers and coaches who feel more devastated.

"Liu Xiang will not withdraw unless the pain is intolerable, unless he has no other way out," said China's national team coach Feng Shuyong. Liu's coach, Sun Haiping, broke down sobbing several times at a news conference.