At 0: 55am on August 8th, 2008, Savady from Qatar, Koko from France, Van der Weston from the Netherlands, Hilary Yani from Georgia, Scott from Britain and Giovalides from Greece finished the men's 1 10 meter hurdles preliminaries at the National Stadium. At this time, there were 9 1000 spectators in the stands, but the scene was silent, and no one knew them or paid attention to them. Just five minutes ago, it was a tsunami. The competition they participated in is the most popular competition since the beginning of the Olympic Games. Although it was only a preliminary round, none of them had the best score of 13 seconds. However, they are also very pleased to know that the protagonist of this competition is not himself, but an athlete from China who has just withdrawn from the competition. His name is Liu Xiang, the son of this country.
On the opening night of the Beijing Olympic Games, Liu Xiang didn't go to the scene. He stayed in the Tiantan apartment, watching the grand occasion of the Bird's Nest on TV and imagining the scene he appeared ten days later.
The Olympic Games officially started, and the China Legion sang all the way. As of August 17, 2007, the delegation of China has won 35 gold medals, far ahead of the United States, which is dominant in sports. People in China are immersed in a strong sense of happiness, and people have no time to taste the happiness brought by gold medals. Another excitement followed-Liu Xiang will take part in the 1 10 meter hurdles preliminaries the next day, and take a step forward. Of course, at this time, no one would have thought that he would retire.
On the morning of August/KOOC-0/8/KOOC-0/0: 50, coach Sun Haiping gave it to Liu Xiang leg press as usual, and everything seemed normal. The audience has been sitting in the stands, waiting for the appearance of Liu Xiang. Some of them are lucky enough to book tickets for this game, and many people can only come to watch the game at a price 20 times higher than the tickets. Most of them have the idea that it's worth it for Liu Xiang. 1 hour later, Liu Xiang walked into the Bird's Nest with the contestants from the sixth group. In the warm applause and cheers of the audience, he didn't smile, nor did he wave confidently and stick out his tongue in a naughty way. Chen Jinfeng, the referee who reported the athletes, recalled after the game that when he saw Liu Xiang everywhere in the newspaper, he found that his mental state was very poor. "I felt something was wrong as soon as he came in." Van der Weston, a Dutch player in the same group as Liu Xiang, also said, "I saw his warm-up state and knew he had a problem." In fact, coach Sun Haiping repeatedly euphemistically emphasized Liu Xiang's foot injury before the game, and he tried to cool Liu Xiang's high expectations in this way. However, people don't think so. They expect and believe that Liu Xiang can continue to write brilliantly at home, beat Cuban teenager Robles and even regain the world record.
Liu Xiang stepped onto the runway and the audience cheered. He began to do the final warm-up, with no expression on his face. Later, Liu Xiang's actions worried the audience. After several hurdles, he suddenly squatted down, clutching his right foot, and his expression was very painful. Then, he limped back to the starting line, took off his training vest and put on his racing suit. The conference began to introduce athletes. When Liu Xiang was introduced into the second lane, the audience broke into roaring cheers again, and the audience's worries were alleviated. Until now, people still believe that there is nothing wrong with Liu Xiang. This is just an episode, and their hero likes to be funny.
At the beginning of the game, someone stole the first shot. Liu Xiang stopped in front of the first column, tore off the entry number he had just posted, kneaded it into a ball by hand, got up and slowly walked out of the venue and returned to the rest passage. The audience near the stadium was dumbfounded, and the audience in the distance didn't know what had happened. The scene was silent and people were still comforting themselves. Their "flying man" just went back to get what he had forgotten.
"Ladies and gentlemen, China's Liu Xiang had to give up the race because of injury in the second runway." When the announcer announced the news in a low voice, 9 1000 spectators gave a loud "Ah …" sound in unison, and then the Bird's Nest was silent. People just stood there and said they were not waiting for anything. They couldn't believe what was in front of them. Many people can't help crying. The remaining six athletes completed the 1 10 meter hurdles. No one cheered, no one cheered, and no one even noticed their existence.
At the press conference after the game, Sun Haiping burst into tears. Feng Shuyong, head coach of China track and field team, said, "He will never quit unless he has to." According to Sun Haiping, as early as the first half of 2008, the team knew about Liu Xiang's foot injury. But the Olympic Games is just around the corner, so they can only take a gamble. On August 16, Liu Xiang's injury suddenly worsened, and there were more and more signs that he could not continue to play. However, the track and field center and the Liu Xiang team still held the last glimmer of hope and decided to give it a try. On the night of his retirement, Luo Chaoyi, director of the track and field center, said in an exclusive interview with CCTV that Liu Xiang's injury was not disclosed because "he could not grow the ambition of others and ruin his prestige." Finally, gambling failed. In BEYOND's Broad Sky, Liu Xiang unloaded the expectations of countless China people and walked out of the Bird's Nest alone.
After Liu Xiang retired, the sponsor was the first to respond. Most of Liu Xiang's endorsement brands supported him at the first time, but their advertising marketing strategies changed immediately. In the evening, in the TV advertisement of CCTV Olympic Channel, Nike replaced Liu Xiang with a child staring at TV and watching basketball. The day after Yili retired in Liu Xiang, she changed the star of the advertisement to Guo Jingjing. As the main sponsor of Liu Xiang, Nike was also involved in the rumor of "manipulating Liu Xiang to retire", which Nike immediately refuted and determined the tone of continuing to believe in Liu Xiang, but since then, there has never been a new image of Liu Xiang in Nike TV advertisements. Amway Nutrilite denied the news of the termination of the contract with Liu Xiang, but in the new advertisement, the image of Liu Xiang was replaced by Yang Wei and others. In 2009, Coca-Cola was the only new advertisement in Liu Xiang. Other companies that still have contracts with Liu Xiang have adopted a more conservative attitude.
Unlike the sponsors' caution, the public's attitude towards Liu Xiang's retirement is quite different. On various public opinion platforms, many people have expressed their understanding and sympathy for Liu Xiang, such as "Don't ask Liu Tie for 65.438+300 million people" and "The crying of the Bird's Nest is a pity for their children". The comments of netizens are mostly affectionate. Some media have called for "understanding Liu Xiang's retirement in the name of humanity" in their comments. But at the same time, there are still many voices that "Liu Xiang is a coward", "I feel cheated" and "Liu Xiang will go to the end even if he goes". Regarding these criticisms and doubts, the famous journalist Guan Jun said, "Many people don't want to think about a very basic truth: when Liu Xiang was a hero, we felt that he represented us; So when he encounters a tragedy in life, does this tragedy only represent himself? Compared with successfully defending the title, the great defeat of August 18 is undoubtedly more suitable to represent the present China. The progress of the country and the maturity of the national mind have never been completed by a song and dance. "
These understandings, sympathy, dissatisfaction and resentment also exist, and they are two sides of the same problem, which shows that our people are gradually maturing, but they have not completely shaken off the influence of the dream of becoming a powerful country. Thankfully, we no longer make a uniform sound, but have more thoughts of our own. In this sense, Liu Xiang's withdrawal from the competition is objectively a test and improvement of the national quality. Some overseas media commented that China people are "gradually gaining the confidence and normality that the nationals of big countries should have".
Besides, we should not ignore another voice. Xinhua News Agency reporters Yang Ming, Xiao Chunfei and Liu Dan wrote articles after the game. "The only regret is that the China track and field team should disclose the news of Liu Xiang's injury earlier. This is not a shameful thing. Early disclosure can not only decompress Liu Xiang, but also prepare the Chinese and the audience early, which can completely avoid the embarrassment of the audience and the media today. " An online survey conducted by the World Wide Web on the same day showed, "Can you accept Liu Xiang's retirement?" Nearly 70% of the voters chose the option "Yes, if you are injured, don't play hardball". We hope that our public will not be too critical of Liu Xiang, and at the same time, we also hope that our sports community can face athletes' injuries with a more open mind and make them public as soon as possible, so that the public can be psychologically prepared. From this perspective, Liu Xiang's retirement has given our public and sports an important growth lesson.
At the moment when Liu Xiang retired, people sighed, then there was silence, then there was speculation, and then there was discussion. Some people laughed, some supported, some were dissatisfied and some understood. But for Liu Xiang's mother, Ji Fenhua, she only felt distressed. On the morning of August 18, after Liu Xiang retired, Ji Fenhua in front of the TV was in tears. She said that she was distressed that her son had suffered so much, not because Liu Xiang couldn't win the Olympic gold medal. On August 8, she and her husband Liu Xuegen came to Beijing to watch the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. Considering that the first round was relatively easy, they didn't go to the scene to cheer for their son that day. They organized more than 40 relatives and friends in Shanghai, ready to wait until the last day of August 2 1 Day 100 meter hurdles to cheer for Liu Xiang. Unfortunately, Ji Fenhua still can't see her son even though the Beijing Olympic Games in Liu Xiang have ended. After the Athens Olympic Games, Liu Xiang once changed the MSN signature to "Super Involuntary", and Ji Fenhua often said "He is the son of the country now, give it back to me in a few years", with bitterness in glory.
In September 2008, Liu Xiang finally returned to his home in Shanghai. He was greeted by the barking of Mocha, a German wolfhound with black back, who was not familiar with his master. Mocha hasn't seen Liu Xiang for nearly four months because of Olympic training. Before the Olympic Games, Liu Xiang had planned many things, such as assembling 37 sets of saint doll models given to him by his friends after the games, but he had to put them on hold temporarily because he had other worries. He knows that he has not "retired" yet, and he wants to come back as soon as possible. He once told his parents that this road will definitely go on.
Next, going abroad, having surgery, recovering, returning to China and training, Liu Xiang's life continues with the public's attention. People are still waiting, and Liu Xiang knows he has more to prove than just getting back on the runway. In this sense, the pressure of Liu Xiang's comeback is even greater than when he retired.
After Liu Xiang became famous, his mother Ji Fenhua prayed to the media: "If one day Liu Xiang is no longer outstanding, I hope everyone can forgive him." We wait for that day, not to see Liu Xiang's failure, but to see our own maturity.