Liu Xiang (hurdler)

Liu Xiang (born July 13, 1983) is a retired Chinese 110-meter hurdler. He won an Olympic gold medal and a world championship title, and his victory at the 2004 Athens Games marked China's first Olympic gold in men's track and field. He is regarded as one of the country's most accomplished athletes and became a cultural icon.

Liu is the only male athlete to have simultaneously held the world record, world championship, and Olympic title in the 110-meter hurdles. He still holds the Olympic record of 12.91 seconds, set in Athens. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he was the favorite to repeat as champion but withdrew after a false start and an aggravated, previously undisclosed injury. At the 2012 London Olympics, he was again a top contender but tore his Achilles tendon while attempting the first hurdle in the heats. He announced his retirement on Sina Weibo on April 7, 2015.

In May 2001, Liu won the East Asian Games in Osaka with a time of 13.42 seconds. That August, he won the Universiade in Beijing in 13.33 seconds, and later that year he also won the National Games of China. In 2002, he set an Asian record of 13.12 seconds at the Athletissima meeting, breaking Renaldo Nehemiah's 25-year-old world junior record. The next year, he earned bronze medals in the 60-meter hurdles at the 2003 IAAF World Indoor Championships and the 110-meter hurdles at the 2003 World Championships.

At an IAAF Grand Prix in Osaka in May 2004, Liu beat Allen Johnson with a personal best of 13.06 seconds. He improved further at the Athens Olympics, winning the final by a wide margin in 12.91 seconds, tying Colin Jackson's world record and setting a new Olympic record. The runner-up, Terrence Trammell, was nearly three-tenths of a second behind. Liu became the sixth man to break 13 seconds in the event and defied the belief that Asian athletes could not excel in elite sprinting. He said his gold medal "changes the opinion that Asian countries don't get good results in sprint races. I want to prove to all the world that Asians can run very fast." At 21 and a student at East China Normal University, he became the target of a sponsorship bidding war, though the Chinese Track and Field Association limited him to four deals. He finished the season with four of the year's ten fastest times, reaching 17 finals and losing only two, both to Allen Johnson.

At the 2005 World Championships in Hel