Friday 7 September 2012

The Liu Xiang Story



As our social networking tools are developing fast, media spread things immediately all over the internet, the internet has been a platform for communication all over the world and it became crucial to our daily life. Discussion boards, chat rooms, social networking sites such as the popular Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, they create online spaces that people browse and discuss and comment on whatever they want.

Good news transmits fast, so do rumours. How did the media become a pressure to the atheletics? There is this well-known Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang, he has been a target of attention as well as attack since the 2008 Olympic Games. As a Chinese nation of glory that he won a gold medal in 2004 Olympics, he himself has been a big attention throughout the country. The major story started from his performance in 2008 Olympics that he was not able to finish his 110m hurdle competition due to his legs injury. After months of recovery, he started his hurdle again and has won awards in hurdle competitions. And soon in 2012, people in China put extra ultimate expectation and support to him but he fell down during the 110 hurdles first round after clipping the first hurdle.

The story went like :
“More than 38 million messages have been posted on Sina Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter, with most critical of Liu and suggesting that he had "cheated" the public and that he had co-starred in a "world class farce" with CCTV.

Where Sina Weibo can be described as a Chinese Twitter that people put status on it that they can repost and comment. 38 millions! 38 millions of critiques on an national athletic after not winning anything from a competition and been commented that he was acting to fall down during the competition? In a personal point of view, why did athletics make themselves injured because they do not want to finish the competition after million years of practices? How does it make sense to everybody? Doesn’t he deserve respect rather than a situation like this that he has to face millions of people’s attacks? Especially when it comes to the internet platform, story could not be easily controlled because of its fast speed of sharing and reposting stuff on everywhere.   

Liu Xiang soon spoke to the media after seeing such over raging condition on the internet by his own nation. He said that he had really tried his best in the game that he tried to start the game even he knew that he had foot problems at that time, he thought he could do it. Unfortunately situation didn’t go like what he has expected. And he described that ‘I felt like I was lashed by a whip."

When everyone on the internet saying that Liu Xiang was cheating the public in his Olympics performance, Liu Xiang claiming that he was really in pain with his foot injury and wanted to try his best to finish the game. Who’s saying right, who’s saying wrong. No one knows. But it has obviously been a big pressure to athletics that they had to face such negative comments over the internet, BY THEIR OWN NATIONS. Serious huh?

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