Leaping Liu strides to another accolade
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China Daily, January 18, 2012
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Liu Xiang holds the trophy of the Grand Jury Prize during the 2011 CCTV Sports Personality awards ceremony in Beijing on Sunday. Cui Meng / China Daily |
Lui Xiang reaped one last award for 2011. Now it's time to focus on 2012.
Liu, who won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2011 CCTV Sports Personality of the Year awards on Sunday night, is focusing on training for the London Olympics.
"The priority for Liu's participation at the London Olympic Games is safety, and the second one is achieving good results," coach Sun Haiping said on Sunday of the hurdler, who battled a foot injury for much of the past three years.
"We are giving him more intensive training gradually, and this week he started to train with spiked shoes.
"His injury felt not good on Tuesday since he just trained with spiked shoes this week. It's a normal feeling and the physical therapist is helping him every day. We are optimistic. We will try our best to achieve good results."
The Grand Jury Prize is awarded to the person the judges feel made the greatest impact on Chinese sports during the year.
Liu said he was honored and surprised.
"I've won many prizes, but winning this one still made me very happy and excited," said Liu, who was also nominated as Male Athlete of the Year, but lost to young swimming world record holder Sun Yang.
"I'm 28 years old, but I don't want to retire at all. I want to stick to it. I'm very proud to be an athlete in China in such an unprecedented era," he said.
Liu's injury forced him to withdraw from the first round of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, to the disappointment and criticism of his fans.
This past year was considered a turning point in his long rehabilitation. He returned to the World Championships and claimed a silver medal after a controversial final in which Dayron Robles of Cuba was disqualified for bumping Liu.
Liu also adopted a new technique of approaching the first hurdle with seven steps instead of eight.
Sun said he was satisfied with Liu's year.
"The year 2011 is a great turning point for Liu," said Sun, who has been working with Liu for more than 10 years.
"After he got the injury in 2008, Liu underwent the surgery and returned to the track in 2009. He felt very good after returning, but fell to another low after the a reoccurrence of the injury. After rehabilitating in 2010, Liu performed near his best last year. I'm very satisfied with him."
The London Olympics are set to be the third and probably last for Liu, who won the gold medal in the men's 110m hurdles at the 2004 Athens Games.
"Liu might continue his training after the London Games, but for him, his best form will be at London this year," said Sun.
"Experiencing those ups and downs, Liu is also very capable of self adjustment."
Liu will start his year with an indoor competition in February.
"For the indoor meets, I will focus on the explosive force at the beginning and the first three hurdles," Liu said.
"It will be nearly a whole year after turning to the new technique, so I hope I can improve for the first three hurdles. I want to make a breakthrough."
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