Home advantage can be a mixed blessing.
The support of the home crowd is welcome,
but the burden of expectation can be overwhelming.
And in Beijing 2008,
the entire Chinese nation was looking to one man for glory.
This man, Liu Xiang.
Few people will ever be able to understand the pressure
that Liu Xiang was under
to bring home gold at the Beijing Olympics.
His modest habits and unassuming manner
made him irresistible to big business,
desperate to be associated with an authentic Chinese hero.
In the build-up to the games, Liu was everywhere,
his image associated with everything
from sports brands to soft drinks.
His opening appearance on the track
brought the nation to a standstill.
China's 110 metre hurdle champ
was about to start his Olympic campaign.
TV audiences spiked.
But something didn't feel right.
There had been rumours about his fitness,
an old Achilles injury flaring up.
Liu was not himself.
A false start by Marcel van der Westen,
but no-one was looking at the Dutchman,
a nation turned its eye on Liu.
Did that just happen?
Did he just pull up before the first hurdle?
And then he walked off.
No restart, no heat, no Olympic final for Liu Xiang.
There was silence in the stadium.
TV audiences plunged.
The pain, the shock.
There were tears, dismay
and bitter, bitter disappointment.
Now, wait a moment. No-one died!
Beijing 2008 was a great success.
China won plenty of gold medals.
So why did the fortunes of just one athlete matter so much?
Why so much pressure on one man?
To answer that question,
you need to take a broader look
at the history of Chinese athletics.
While it is true that China has
been a heavyweight at the Olympic Games,
their success on the track has been limited.
The men's team had won just one medal,
Zhu Jianhua winning bronze in the high jump in 1984,
and nothing since.
Out of this emerged the young Liu Xiang.
He was inspired by Zhu to take up athletics and the high jump.
But at 6'2", Liu is on the short side for a high jumper.
So, instead, Liu drifted into the 110 metre hurdles,
new ground for a Chinese athlete.
And something else about the hurdles.
It's really hard.
It's really, really hard!
Young Liu devoted himself to the toughest,
most technically demanding discipline of them all.
There are so many elements to this craft,
so much to get right, so much to get wrong.
At 16 Liu was the schoolboy champion of China.
At 18 he broke the junior world record.
At 20, he won a bronze medal at the World Championship.
Going into the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens,
China finally had a genuine contender in track and field.
Here's heat 3. Out of the blocks.
Hernandez of Cuba has a big start
and Liu coming on now, he always finishes well.
Terrance Tremmel is coming with him. Can he keep up with Liu?
Liu easing up, he's qualified easily and so has Tremmel.
Liu, now 21, sailed through his heats,
his exceptional technique
seeing him safely into the final.
Olympic record holder Allen Johnson
would not be joining him
after coming unstuck.
The 110m hurdles, an obstacle course with spikes.
Liu had a real chance of a medal.
Chinese fans in their millions
got up in the early hours to watch.
A nation dared to dream.
And they're off.
Allen, a great start in lane 1.
Tremmel from the USA in lane 6 is moving well too.
But here comes Liu, he's being pushed
by the Frenchman, Doucoure,
but this is really fast. He's pulling away now,
and Liu is in.
That's gold for China and a new Olympic record!
Just off the world mark.
The first Chinese male athlete in history
to win gold in track and field.
Liu would remain in the headlines
as the country prepared
for Beijing 2008, Liu's home Olympic Games.
In 2006, he set a new world record of 12.88.
In 2007, he won the World Championship,
another first for China and Liu.
He was all set to defend his Olympic gold medal
in his hometown in 2008.
As we know, it didn't work out
Let's not go over all that again
because "to understand is to forgive".
But for everything he's done for Chinese sport,
Liu Xiang doesn't deserve forgiveness,
he deserves thanks.