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In Failure, Xiang’s Sad Story Exemplifies True Olympic Lesson

Posted August 18th, 2008 at 8:00 AM by Adam Jacobs

Section: News & Results, Track & Field, SoundOFF, Columns, Olympics

The 95,000 fans who packed into Beijing’s Bird’s Nest and exploded with cheers when native son and 2004 gold medalist Liu Xiang was announced, groaned just as loudly only moments later when he withdrew from heat 6 of today’s 110 meter hurdles.

Xiang was limping and wincing in pain as he lined up for his first race after months of battling foot and hamstring injuries. Then, after a false start was called on the field, he came out of the blocks hobbling and proceeded to rip off his race number. As Xiang walked off the National Stadium track and into the tunnel, the reality of the nightmare scenario set-in: the national hero of the world’s most populated country would leave their own Olympic Games without a medal.

Sun Haiping, Xiang’s personal coach, broke down several times during the post-race press conference and cited a pre-existing, chronic foot injury as the cause of the withdrawal. While that may be true, I have to wonder whether the pressure of having more than a billion people expecting absolutely nothing less than a gold medal may have led to the type of overtraining that would exasperate such an injury.

Tonight marks a sad ending to a sad story for Liu Xiang, a truly phenomenal athlete who seemed almost destined for disaster by being forced on the impossible quest for perfection.

Although the Olympic Games can be an epic stage for triumphs, unimaginable achievements, and the realization of personal and nationalistic dreams where athletes can morph into god-like heroes, they also demonstrate the humbling and cruel realities of our own innate imperfections. If you take greatness for granted you are just asking to be disappointed. Outside of Hollywood, when there is no room for error and the bar is raised so high as to require you to be flawless to even come within the same stratosphere of meeting expectations, more often than not, you will fail.

For Xiang’s sake, I hope that the Chinese leaders and his 1.3 billion compatriots can accept and appreciate that all of us - even the most gifted athletes - are in the end, simply human.

Despite its fundamental nationalistic elements and the unavoidable political issues that color its purpose, the Olympics are supposed to be a time when the people of the world set aside all of their differences to take part in and learn from the universal and idealistic elements of sport. Like it’s creators, the Olympic mission is undoubtedly imperfect, but maybe that - in and of itself - is the most important lesson of all.

Beyond all that divides us, the most unifying and admirable aspect of humankind is our endless desire to overcome these imperfections and pursue our dreams even though our own humanity ensures that the odds of failure will always be inescapably greater than those of success.

Philip Hersh said:

Great piece today, Adam. I think you make same great points and look forward to more, excellent Olympic coverage by The Final Sprint.

- PH
August 18th, 2008 at 7:05 am
shannon said:

I know from first hand experience just how hard it can be as an
Olympic athlete to deal with all of the pressures and failures. Thanks
so much for writing this and for supporting elite athletes in so many
ways. Looking forward to doing another podcast with you soon too!
August 18th, 2008 at 8:52 am
Jennifer G. said:

I feel so bad for Liu Xiang and honestly (and I feel bad for even thinking this) - I can’t help but pray that nothing bad happens to him in the weeks ahead - considering the nation that he represents and all the pressure and expectations they placed on him.
August 18th, 2008 at 9:52 am