Poor Liu Xiang. In 2004, he was the poster boy for China and Asian athletes. Now he is the unwitting symbol of premature ejaculation. As Ministry of Tofu noted on Tuesday, a newspaper ad has found another way to poke fun at Liu's dismal performance (I mean his fakery and everything that transpired after he crashed out, not the injury itself) at the London Olympics. The ad reads: He fell right after the star ...

In the history of censorship in Chinese media, surely we've seen more half-baked decisions and upsetting punishments. But surely, as well, we've never seen so many journalists punished for such small beer. Spare me your sermon about Liu Xiang as the face of the country's athletics program and a national hero, etc.: I'm arguing against the mechanisms that have underpinned this very apotheosis of a talented - ...

The Brand Channel has a very interesting article about how Liu Xiang's inability to clear any hurdles in London will affect his ability to sell merchandise, specifically looking at how his sponsors have rushed to re-spin the message on the heels (no pun intended... wait, pun intended) of his crash-out yesterday. Among the noteworthy elements of Abe Sauer's piece is the above ad from Mini Cooper, with the ac ...

What the hell did we watch? Why didn't someone help Liu Xiang up? Why was he left hopping around on one foot like an inspirational failure? Liu Xiang was in the sixth heat of the preliminaries in the 110-meter hurdles, and on his first leap his left foot collided with the hurdle, sending him down. He landed awkwardly, tumbled and tumbled, and the CCTV commentators emitted a scream and then went speechless f ...

You may think this an ordinary llama wearing heart-shaped sunglasses, but that's where you'd be wrong. This is a llama that loves Liu Xiang, the hurdler. Also, it's wearing heart-shaped sunglasses, but we may have already mentioned that. As brought to our attention by Alicia, this llama isn't at all afraid to show its Olympic allegiances: ...

This is an Olympics Countdown post. Sporadically, we’ll post Olympics- and/or England-related content ahead of this summer’s London Games. The above picture (photoshopped, obviously) is making the rounds on Weibo, and why shouldn't it be? Sports is an outlet for people here to release their pent-up emotions and express their frustrations (sometimes this is bad). In this instance, the hero from 2004, who sho ...