Three dates were to have strung together the story of the Beijing Olympics. July 13, 2001, when news of the city getting the 2008 Games brought thousands of people to Tiananmen Square for a night of celebration. August 8, 2008, an auspicious confluence of 8s when the Games were officially opened. And August 21, 2008, when the country’s biggest Olympic hero would bring back the 110m gold.

That gold will now not be.This morning Liu Xiang lined up for his heat at the Bird’s Nest, but failed to run it, in an instant bringing Beijing to a standstill. A false start by another hurdler, and Liu pulled out. Minutes after he left the stadium, in the silence that has been his since the Games began, his coaches appeared before the media to say that an old Achilles tendon injury had recurred Saturday, making it extremely painful to compete. He disconsolately tore off the sticker indicating his participation in lane two and left the ground.

By then everyone in the Olympic Park had clustered around television sets, watching in disbelief, many in tears, as his coaches addressed a somberly conducted press conference. Sun Haiping, 25-year-old Liu’s coach, broke down inconsolably, with the moderator and the head coach of the Chinese athletics team (Feng Shuyong) trying to calm him.

Sun, who had discovered Liu in Shanghai ten years ago, said every medical attention had been provided, but there was no way to help him to stand up.

Feng repeatedly underscored the point: “Liu would not withdraw unless he had no other way out.” Feng faced a barrage of questions. Had the extent of Liu’s injury been concealed? How difficult would it be for the people of China to come to terms with this? (A recent poll, said Feng hopefully, had found that 60 per cent of the people would understand if he did not win the 110m hurdles.) How much pressure did Liu have to withstand? (Just imagine, said Feng, everywhere he goes in China, he sees his photographs. Every time he surfs the Net, he reads news about himself. And as the Games got closer, imagine the pressure on him.)

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