Athletics/Star to watch: Struggling with injury, gold medal not in bank yet for Liu Xiang

BEIJING, July 23 (Xinhua) -- As Chinese people are expecting their sports icon Liu Xiang to defend his Olympic crown at home 16 days away, hamstring injury, the Achilles' heel of a sprinter, could seriously threaten that he is no longer the unquestioned favorite.

"Liu's current condition is not good for his Olympic performance," Sun Haiping, Liu's coach said in a CCTV interview two weeks ago.

"The injury is still there. I hope it can get better in the next two weeks," Liu told CCTV as he immensed himself in the final stage of the Olympic gear-up.

The "flying man", after one-month medical recovery from the fatal injury, which forced him out of the Reebok Grand Prix in New York on May 31, came back to hurdles and finished a complete 110 meters sprint hurdle last week in a close door trial, and clocked 13.18 seconds.

This is the best performance so far this year for him, China's only hope for a gold medal in track and field, which equals the time he run at the Bird's Nest debut in May, the only outdoor race he took this season.

This result ranks him only the 13th in the world arena this year.

Apparently, Liu is not in his best condition, and the situation was made even worse by his Reebok GP pullout and the disqualification from the Prefontaine Classic in Oregon for a second false start. He missed the only two matches planned before the Beijing Games.

"His challengers, however, are in very good shapes," said his coach Sun.

Dayron Robles from Cuba just set a new world record by shaving a hundredth of a second off Liu's 12.88 seconds record in the Czech Republic last month.

David Oliver, another championship challenger from the United States, ran 12.89 seconds in the U.S. Olympic trials. And Terrence Trammell, a two-time Olympic silver medalist who has run 12.95 seconds, won the Reebok Grand Prix in 13.11 seconds, his best result of the year.