Editor’s Note: Meet Junling Cui, our exclusive wOw Woman on the scene in Beijing. For the Olympics, wowOwow goes right to the source for an insider’s perspective on the news coming out of Beijing. Junling will be reporting from both the women’s perspective and from the point of view of a Chinese national, on all things Olympics — from the athletes’ stories to the social impact of the Games.

Day Seven

There’s only one thing to write about today. It’s a shocking day for China, it’s a depressing day for China and it’s a heartbreaking day for china. Liu Xiang, the Chinese hurdler, is out of the Games because of his heel injury.

You may not know his name so well, but he was a national hero here in China. There’s really no American Olympian you can compare him to. Basically, take the fame that Michael Phelps has now, after winning eight gold medals, and go back in time by six or nine months. Liu’s image has been everywhere, all the time. If you came to China, you could see his face on billboards, on TV, on magazine covers, in advertisements for everything from VISA to Coca Cola to a Chinese milk called Yi Li.

Why was he such a hero? Because he was the first athlete to win the Olympic gold medal in track and field in Chinese history — in Athens in 2004, in the 110-meter hurdles.

It was a great achievement. Because most Chinese don’t think Asians are built for track and field. Watching track-and-field races, you barely see Asian faces. But somehow, Liu Xiang achieved a miracle. And miracles bring attention.

Attention is a good thing but it also means pressure. In his case, enormous, unfathomable pressure. Almost every Chinese was assuming he was going to get the 2008 Olympic gold medal. That’s 1.3 billion people, assuming you’re going to show the world that it’s not just gymnastics, diving and ping pong that we’re the best in.

Sometimes when you want something so much you just ignore the reality. And the reality is that his injury has been affecting his performance for a while. Yesterday, while flipping the TV channels, I actually saw a program with some sports journalists discussing the reason that Liu Xiang wasn’t participating in track meets prior to the Games: "It’s a strategy. He doesn’t want his rival to know how good he is. So his rival doesn’t know what he is competing with."

Baloney. He was hurt. This morning, when he turned around and left the track knowing he couldn’t go, there was a very loud groan in the Bird’s Nest, "the biggest sound of surprise I’ve ever heard in my life," said Wang Lei, a radio reporter who was present.

Today, anywhere you go in Beijing, you hear people talking about Liu Xiang. Some fans are heartbroken. Some fans were angry. They insisted Liu should have stayed in the game despite his injury to prove he’s a real hero. Ridiculous. Any athlete with a serious heel injury knows you can’t even jog — let alone run — an Olympic 110-meter race when you’re hurting. Give the guy a break. He’s not a product of the allegedly nefarious Chinese sports "machine." He’s a normal guy from Shanghai. His father’s a bus driver — who happened to be fast.

Tonight, when I came back to the hotel, I overheard the doorman saying to one of his colleagues: "You support your hero when he wins. You support your hero when he loses." Exactly right. That’s the Olympic spirit. Even here in China.