This summer, the World Championships in Athletics will celebrate their 40th anniversary. To celebrate the year of the world's premier athletics event, the World Athletics Federation launched a poll to invite track and field fans around the world to recognize the greatest moments of each of the 40 World Championships in the men's and women's events. China's Liu Xiang's "ninth miracle" at the 2007 Osaka World Championships is proudly listed.
Fifteen years ago, in the men's 110m hurdles final at the 2007 World Championships, Liu Xiang ran the passion of the fourth track in the unobtrusive ninth track, once again showing his demeanor as a first-class high hurdle athlete. It should be noted that the "Ninth Track Miracle" is only one of the three highlights of Liu Xiang's sports career.
18 years ago at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, before the competition, the outside world unanimously believed that Liu Feixiang had the strength to impact the medal, pay attention, just a medal! At that time, Liu Xiang's personal best had not yet crossed the 13-second mark, and the best result of the World Series was the third place in the World Championships. Unexpectedly, in the men's 110m final of the Olympic Games, Liu Xiang, who was only 21 years old, achieved a high combination of first-class hurdle technology and first-class speed, and he achieved a breakthrough of zero Chinese men's athletics Olympic champions with a flat world record of 12.91 seconds, while bringing an end to the embarrassing history of the yellow race not winning the world championship in the track and field straight event. This heavy gold medal also elevated Liu Xiang's historical status to the level of a super-first-class player in Chinese sports.
In 2006, Liu Xiang once again became the focus of global sports and even the press, and he ran 12.88 seconds at the IAAF Super Grand Prix in Lausanne, breaking the 13-year world record held by British star Colin Jackson. Winning the Olympic gold medal, breaking the world record and the "ninth track miracle" lifted Liu Xiang to the height of the men's 110m hurdles Grand Slam.
It is necessary to remind that the golden period of Liu Xiang's sports career is at the time of the rapid development of China's Olympic sports, the Chinese delegation at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games ranked among the top three in the gold medal list for the first time, and the 2004 Athens Olympic Games rose to the top position of the gold medal list. When Liu Xiang achieved the men's 110m hurdles Grand Slam, the Chinese sports world won 112 gold medals in the Olympic arena, and more than 100 Olympic champions emerged. Among them, Deng Yaping, Liu Guoliang, Wang Nan, Kong Linghui in table tennis, Zhang Ning in badminton, Gao Min, Tian Liang, Guo Jingjing in diving, and Lin Li in swimming are all Grand Slam winners in their respective events.
At that time, a number of Olympic champions and even Grand Slam winners, Liu Xiang was the "head" beyond reproach, and only Yao Ming, who shined in the NBA, was comparable to him, but he was not a world champion.
Why can Liu Xiang stand out among Olympic champions and Grand Slam groups?
In fact, the men's 110m hurdles is not the most interesting event in the athletics arena, it is Liu Xiang's rise that has made this project the focus of Chinese sports and the world athletics community. It was Liu Xiang who achieved the breakthrough of zero Chinese men's track and field Olympic champions, filling the history of Huang Race missing the world championship in the track and field straight event. Outstanding strength, sunny temperament, coupled with good speech and extraordinary emotional intelligence, a series of factors have elevated Liu Xiang's historical status to the height of China's super-first-class athlete.
However, Liu Xiangcheng was destroyed in the Olympics. The Beijing Olympics were retired due to injury, making him a "thousand fingers", and some even put the hat of "liar" on the heads of track and field wizards.
What is Liu Xiang's crime, who did he deceive?
Liu Xiang's achievements in the 110-meter hurdles track have made him a strong contender for the gold medal in the Beijing Olympics, and the Olympic Games on his doorstep, the defending title, and the most influential athletics event in the Olympic Games, a series of backgrounds are intertwined, and Liu Xiang is bound to become the focus of hundreds of millions of eyes.
Winning the gold medal in a row, who else! Unfortunately, before the Beijing Olympics, Liu Xiang suffered from a condition called "bursitis". However, the huge attraction of the Olympic Games at the doorstep, the high attention of the outside world, the expectations of leaders at all levels, and the huge advertising that cannot bear the heavy weight do not allow Liu Xiang to make a voice before the competition that "I regret giving up the qualification for the Beijing Olympics due to injury and illness".
Liu Xiang was only 25 years old at the time, and he paid a high price for his youth. In the men's 110-meter preliminary round of the Beijing Olympics, hundreds of millions of eyes focused on Liu Xiang, the No. 1 star of the Chinese Olympic Legion, but regretted the end of the Beijing Olympic journey due to a ruptured Achilles tendon. However, this bitter ending has become an unbearable result in the eyes of many people, for a time, "Liu Xiang is a liar" and "Liu Run" roars filled the Internet, Liu Xiang, who shouted out the passionate slogan "China has me, Asia has me", his good image instantly fell to the bottom, a generation of famous generals, became a sinner in the minds of many people, and became the object of everyone's accusations and scolding.
Complete one's misery. On the eve of the London Olympics, Liu Xiang, who was in full condition, was seriously injured again. This time, Liu Xiang did not simply withdraw from the race, he tenaciously ran the 110-meter course on one leg, and "completed" the race in this way. Discerning people can see that he is using this way to make up for the doubts about him from the outside world, and to make up for the overwhelming accusations and invective on the Internet four years ago. However, not many people sympathized with his experience at that time, and the loss of the London Olympics once again made Liu Xiang troubled...
Time diluted the accusations of the year, and everything returned to calm. But the IAAF did not forget everything Liu Xiang created that year, so when the shortlist of the 40 greatest moments of the World Athletics Championships was released, the "ninth track miracle" performed by Liu Xiang 15 years ago once again became the focus of attention.
Liu Xiang's unique "ups and downs" experience is bound to bring a question: why was he abused by the whole Internet for withdrawing from the Olympic Games, and why did everyone only remember his defeat but forget his glory at that time, and gradually "forgotten"?
The author believes that there were two main factors in the insults of the whole network that year: First, the things that were full of expectations from the outside world instantly disappeared, and the emotional loss made some people make irrational moves. The second is the kidnapping of morality, they put Liu Xiang's withdrawal from the competition within the scope of personal "reasonable" imagination, and under such emotions, how can there be time for Liu Xiang to explain, and he is greeted by an irresistible storm.
It was only after his retirement that Liu Xiang's "treatment" returned to calm, more precisely, he was gradually "forgotten". Of course, this is not Liu Xiang's unique treatment, the sensational effect when Li Na won the Grand Slam championship 10 years ago was no less than that of Xiangfei at her peak, how many people will mention her now? The super first-class stars in China's sports world at that time, in addition to Yao Ming, who was still running on the front line of basketball, Lang Ping, Li Ning, Li Xiaoshuang, Fu Mingxia, Deng Yaping, Guo Jingjing, Yang Wei, etc., all stepped into the forgotten "corner".
Forty years ago, Chinese sports reconnected to the world, and a batch of the world's top players emerged during this period. When they create brilliance, they often win extraordinary popularity, and once they encounter a fiasco, they are often awaited by sarcasm, sarcasm and even abuse, such as the "May 19" incident in Chinese football in the distance, and the Chinese women's volleyball team questioning Lang Ping after losing the Tokyo Olympics.
At the moment, Quan Hongchan is the most favored Chinese sports star, and whoever dares to mention that her results in the past year are not as good as her teammate Chen Yuxi, he will inevitably be greeted with a bitter scolding. Imagine, if Quan Hongchan loses Maicheng in the World Series, will this cute little one still be loved by everyone?
This is China's unique "star" effect, he loves when you are brilliant, he scolds when you fail, and he forgets when you retire. When will such strange phenomena be closed?! (Wang Quanli)