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The final verdict on Liu Xiang
So it looks like Liu Xiang will take one year off to recover from the Achilles heel injury that forced his hand during the Olympics. Perhaps this is the holiday that the Chinese hurdler deserves after his life became a rollercoaster ride of television advertisements and accolades following the gold medal he won at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. However, it could also be the start of obscurity for this man, who meant so much to the Chinese people, but delivered so little.
I think the case of Liu Xiang was a good insight into the mindset of the average Chinese sports fan. Chinese sports fans expect success - they expect a big fat gold medal rather than those slivers of silver and bronze. They do not like upsets – they prefer the Chinese football team to score a goal within the first five minutes and hold its opponent scoreless for the rest of the game. Chinese sport fans like Phelps because he is a natural-born winner and he won everything that he was expected to.
On the other hand, Chinese sport fans do not like underdogs. They do not like the idea of Australia beating Italy in the World Cup, so they applauded the last minute penalty that was awarded to Italy. Chinese sport fans became very upset when Du Li, the Chinese shooter, lost the final of the Women’s 10m Air Rifle on the first day of the Olympics, an event that she won at Athens 2004. Probably the only example of Chinese sport fans being happy at an upset was when Matthew Emmons miscued in the final of the Men’s 50m Rifle Three Positions, thus gifting the gold medal to China’s Qiu Jian. However, the result wasn’t exactly an upset because Emmons did the same thing at Athens 2004 and the story was too good to ignore – despite failure, Emmons still received support from his doting wife, the pretty Katerina Emmons, who won the gold medal in the Women’s 10m Air Rifle.
After taking into account the average mindset of the Chinese sports fan, I think the most knowledgeable of Chinese sport administrators may have made some calculated guesses. If Liu Xiang was lucky and wound up with the silver medal (because it seemed that even his fastest wasn’t good enough to beat Cuban Dayron Robles), it would still be a disappointment to the gold-loving Chinese sport fans. Wouldn’t an honorable withdrawal due to injury be a more feasible option? Liu’s withdrawal at the Bird’s Nest was a farce when you come to think about it. It was obvious from his grimaces during the warm-up that he was never going to actually complete the race. What was the point? The point was to make it appear like he was trying his best for the motherland, but it was actually to appease the unrealistic expectations of the average Chinese sports fan.
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Posted: 11:28 AM, 6/9/2008 in Beijing OlympicsShare on Facebook |
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