BEIJING 2008 ATHLETICS:A BLOW TO the very heart of China. Handsome, charming, intelligent and famously fast, champion hurdler Liu Xiang was China's secret weapon, an athlete who bore the hopes and dreams of 1.3 billion people on his shoulders, a man who was simply not allowed to lose. And in the Bird's Nest stadium, incredibly, he lost.

Imagine Eamonn Coghlan crossed with Sonia O'Sullivan and you get the idea. China was stunned when national hero and 110 metres hurdles Olympic champion Liu Xiang hobbled out of the Games injured yesterday, and a country's dreams of gold in a discipline in which China has only recently emerged, were dashed.

On the blogs run by the state broadcaster CCTV, there was no forgiveness.

Wang Tong, a sports journalist, said : "Liu Xiang used to be and still is a hero in my mind. But there is the only regret: Before Liu Xiang went out of the Bird's Nest with his injuries, why not wave to the audience, or bow to them?"

"We cannot accept the fact that Liu Xiang quits! Liu Xiang dispels all the passion of Chinese people," ran one irate web posting.

While stunned and shocked, the angry reaction on the state broadcaster did not entirely reflect the feeling on the streets of Beijing, where people were terribly disappointed, but ultimately resigned.

It's not all about golds, and Chinese people have really enjoyed the broader sense of the Olympics. China leads the medals table with a seemingly unassailable 37 gold medals, with the United States way behind with 20.

It's about the kind of gold medals a country wins. Liu was, and remains, someone special. When Liu won the 110-metre hurdles in Athens four years ago, there was genuine disbelief in China - he had overcome a genetic disposition that meant Chinese people were physically incapable of winning in track and field.

As we've seen in these Games, Chinese people are good at gymnastics, at table tennis, at badminton, at diving, but people believe their legs are too short to compete in track and field? That was for the Americans, not the Chinese. Tyson Gay's failure to qualify for the men's 100-metres is no compensation.

Still, Liu, the man who took the Olympic torch from President Hu Jintao in Tiananmen Square in March, who has held the world record in his sport and is simultaneously World and Olympic Champion, just limped off.

"He is under too much pressure, he was afraid of failure. Chinese people put too much attention on him. I wonder if he was injured, why didn't he quit the competition previously? Why those doctors still let him compete? Maybe I am wrong. I have watched the game. It's a pity," said Li Mingyue, 46, a grocery owner in Beijing.

Many Chinese felt that Liu's constant presence on advertising hoardings possibly drained his ambition. "I really thought that Liu Xiang could take less time to engage in advertisement, and spend more time in training. In reality, you are flying 1.3 billion people," said Ye Kuangzheng.

Harsh words. There is no question that a population of 1.3 billion can exert a certain pressure.

"The national pressure crushed him. After the Athens Olympics, Chinese people concentrated on him very much. We all view him as a national treasure. But he is just a human being. I think the pressure from 1.3 billion Chinese people is too much for a man. Just let him have a good rest," said Chen Baotian, 38, a statistics teacher.

Liu was training in secret, away from the public attention which he has courted, but ultimately it always looked like an effort to mask the fact that he was not fit.

Liu advertises everything from milk to Nike, who make a bespoke pair of spikes for him called the Nike Zoom Aerofly LX, as well as Cadillac and Coca-Cola and is on every hoarding, on the side of every bus and features in countless TV ads.

And there is charity there for what might have been.

"It's quite ordinary. Many athletes have quit competitions in history.

"In four years, he will be 29. I think he can still compete in the London Olympics. I like him not because what he can do in the future but because what he did," said Zhang Jie, 27, an architect.