Liu Xiang biography
Liu Xiang, (born July 13, 1983, Shanghai, China), hurdler who in 2004 introduced China its first Olympic gold medal in a males’s track-and-field occasion.
Liu enrolled in a junior sports activities college in fourth grade and initially succeeded on the excessive soar. He switched to the hurdles at age 15 and debuted internationally on the world junior championships in 2000, ending fourth within the 110-metre occasion. He gained the identical race on the 2001 World University Games and in 2002 set world junior data indoors within the 60-metre hurdles (7.55 sec) and open air within the 110-metre hurdles (13.12 sec). In 2003 he earned bronze medals on the indoor and out of doors world championships and was named his nation’s Male Athlete of the Year. Liu gained the 110-metre hurdles on the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, equaling the world report of 12.91 sec and changing into simply the sixth man to put up a time below 13.00 sec. In 2006 he set a world report (12.88 sec) within the occasion, which was damaged two years later.
Liu entered the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games as a heavy favorite within the 110-metre hurdles. However, he pulled up after a false begin in his first-round warmth, having aggravated a continual Achilles tendon harm, and subsequently withdrew from the Games. He returned to competitors after 13 months of rehabilitation and gained his third consecutive Asian Games 110-metre gold medal in 2010.
Liu was once more favoured to medal within the 100-metre hurdles on the London 2012 Olympic Games, however he ruptured his Achilles tendon and crashed into the primary hurdle of his preliminary warmth. He hopped towards the end line and ceremonially kissed the ultimate hurdle, however his Olympics ended with an official “did not finish” in his first race, and he underwent surgical procedure to restore his tendon upon his return to China. Liu’s rehabilitation was in the end a failure, nonetheless, and he didn't compete once more earlier than saying his retirement from athletics in 2015.