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 start! PE, a pain that men are too embarrassed to talk about!

Huifen European-style NT penile dorsal nerves minimally invasive surgery. Within only a quarter of an hour, your sex life can be prolonged 15 minutes.

On Sina Weibo, one of these posts (there are more than one) has received nearly 1,200 comments and more than 11,000 forwards to date. If you want to discover all the “laughing” emoticons available on Weibo — open-mouthed, giggling, etc. — click on that link.

And then, in the comments section, you have the True Believer who gets all huffy and is like, “Lowly merchant. Can’t even afford a spokesperson. Only score points on table-scraping shots. And you want to help patients. Who would dare? No ethics, no baseline, degenerate hospital. Liu Xiang and you have half a mao’s worth of relations.” Yes, @呆大秋. Meanwhile, in the world the rest of us occupy, where a man is only as sacrosanct as the number of hurdles he’s able to clear, and the number of 15-minute sex blocks he’s able to complete:

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 — but not heroic — athlete. The man is a hurdler. He should be relevant like every other hurdler in the world, which is once every four years, maybe two. No disrespect to any hurdlers, of course — I’m merely saying that China’s mythologizing of athletes is remarkably short-sighted and harebrained, as if athletes couldn’t fail. More to the point, it’s as if someone decided sports is the one arena where powers that be are free to whisk national pride with no fear of political reproach. Yet — and here comes the recoil — there are real-world, very political consequences, aren’t there?

Behold, as reported by South China Morning Post (from behind their stupid paywall):

Five editors with the Nanjing-based Oriental Guardian have been suspended over the paper’s critical coverage last week of the Liu Xiang injury cover-up, a rights group and local media sources said.

Editor-in-chief Chen Chaohui, deputy editor Yu Jiechen and three other editors were temporarily removed from their posts, but their final punishment is still unclear, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democracy said yesterday.

Oriental Guardian, of course, was the paper that dared to publicize the silliness around Liu Xiang’s stumble at the London Olympics, including — as we noted, aghast — a state commentator dripping with tears and slobbering with sentimental bullshit. On Oriental Guardian’s August 23 front page, the headline blared, “Liu Xiang knew, CCTV knew and leaders knew – only spectators waited foolishly to witness the moment of miracle.” It was a direct challenge of state media, which is always dangerous, but we’re talking about CCTV’s sports department. Surely no one could be so thin-skinned as to take offense? To the extent that Liu Xiang’s bow-out received the over-coverage it did, the fault lies squarely with CCTV for its endless hyping of this hurdler, for running his annoying commercials every hour, for deciding, in a conference room, that a mortal could be Hero, even in failure.

Here’s what Liu had to say about the incident amid accusations that he was hiding injury:

“When I lost my balance at the first hurdle, I felt my foot was whipped by someone and then I fell,” he recalled. “I didn’t know what was going on and just felt a lot of pain. I was sitting on the ground in pain and felt totally blank.”

“When a stadium worker pushed out a wheelchair, I saw it and didn’t want to sit in it,” he added. “So I hopped to the finish line. When I passed the final hurdle, this thought just popped up in my mind and I wanted to kiss that hurdle.”

As if we didn’t see it all. As if the question was, “How much pain did you feel?” as opposed to, “Why didn’t anyone help you from the track, as if they expected your encore hop? Why did you attempt to race if your condition was so bad that you had to undergo surgery immediately afterwards? Who told you to race, and did you feel like you couldn’t? Why didn’t you warm up before the race? What do you think of a CCTV commentator crying? Who gave you those acting lessons?” And while we’re at it, how do you feel — as someone put it so eloquently on NetEase — about co-starring with CCTV in a world-class farce?

I understand iconoclasts in media are frowned upon here, but who knew a hurdler was an icon. There he is, behold. The mighty hurdler who, in eight years, hasn’t cleared one Olympic hurdle. Let us worship him and say, He transcends sports. How great that is!

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 accompanying message, “Completing my journey, regardless of position or results.”

So… Liu Xiang is an anthropomorphized Mini Cooper. Bravo, whoever thought of that. He’s a black and red Mini Cooper and is on two wheels instead of four because Liu Xiang in real life hopped on one foot instead of two. One over two equals two over four. Marketing school teach you this shit?

Also: it’s a goddam Mini Cooper. Sorry, but the ad is just so rottenly commercial for commercialism’s sake and exploitive that it really lays the marking industry bare.

The Sauer piece is interesting too for its look at Nike, which had invested heavily in the Chinese team, not just Liu Xiang. The Chinese basketball team, for instance, went 0-5, and was — with the exception of its first game against Spain — really awful in such a way that makes you want to lose hope in Chinese basketball or at least kick Wang Zhizhi in the shin (or at least steal something from him, because, you know… what I’m trying to say is, he is very bad at handling the basketball).

And then, as if this weren’t all bad enough for Nike, Sauer drops this:

The salt in Nike’s wounds is that China is otherwise doing spectacularly in London, trading the medal leads with America. Chinese brand Li-Ning is having a fabulous Olympics. Its Spain-sponsored basketball team is advancing and following a spectacular match that won him the badminton gold, China’s Lin Dan gave a thankful pluck to the Li-Ning logo on his jersey.

Ouch.

But that’s OK for the guys in Oregon. They sponsor a whole lot of other people, like US men’s basketball. And their marketing department isn’t Mini Cooper’s, so at least they dress up their commercialism instead of flaunting it like a naked tub of money-sucking lard.

In conclusion: be well, Liu Xiang. I’m sure you will be, with all your sponsorship money.

This picture is misleading. Anja Niedringhaus / AP

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 for the next five seconds. One of them bravely managed the words, “Fallen to the ground,” and then they let the runners who were on their feet cross the finish line without noting their existence or saying one goddamn word as if a half-deity had been assassinated and his blood was now pooling next to his beautiful evergreen body and turning the rubber MondoTrack black while the children of gods gouged out their eyes in disbelief.

And then one of the commentators totally lost perspective and began breathing hot and heavy into the microphone and sniffing and crying. HUH??? Grow a fucking pair, man. Liu Xiang is not your long-lost father, and he’s not DEAD. You didn’t see his foot fall off on live television. He doesn’t tickle you to sleep. He doesn’t feed you ambrosia from his teat. He sure as hell never saved your kitten’s life, or even knows whether you do or don’t have a kitten. He’s a fucking hurdler, for chrissakes — and one that didn’t try nearly as hard as this guy. PERSPECTIVE.

Liu Xiang, 29, sat holding the back of his right ankle, looking around like a lost boy. Twice he got on his knees and tried to get up, and twice he could not. When absolutely no one in the stadium gave a shit about him — we know this because no one went to help him, as if they weren’t supposed to go and help him – Liu Xiang began hopping around on his left foot (GOD!) and went to the tunnel, and then … wait for it … THEN HE CAME BACK OUT. Fuck the hell?

And then he hopped on one foot out to the 10th and final hurdle and gave it a kiss, and that was actually a really sweet moment.

Hurdler Balazs Baji of Hungary raised Liu’s hand, and that was weird, but the crowd went with it and clapped politely. Finally, Liu Xiang sat in a wheelchair, just sat there, not being wheeled away.

And then the CCTV histrionics, the fucking histrionics. I can’t begin to describe to you the things I purposely made myself not hear. “Goodbye Liu Xiang,” the commentator said as his sign-off. Huh? Okay, goodbye. Goodbye? Goodbye. Goodbye! Goodbye. LORD OF FUCKS.

Sports Illustrated reports:

“It was just terrible for that to happen to one of the best hurdlers of all time. It was just a tragedy. I hope he’s OK,” said U.S. hurdler Aries Merritt, who won his heat in 13.07 seconds, the best qualifying time.

“In the hurdles, if you hit a hurdle, to recover is almost impossible. Everyone here is so great – this is the Olympic Games. Everyone here is here to compete. It’s just a shame that it had to happen to Liu. I was looking forward to competing against him.”

That it had to happen to Liu? What’s with the passive voice? Did the hurdle fucking leap from its foundation and tackle Liu Xiang?

You know what didn’t help? The endless promos in the hour before the heat, featuring the rather awful call of his 2004 victory in Athens (in Chinese: “Liu Xiang! Liu Xiang! …He’s won!”). That did not exactly set the appropriate tone. That did not make me any less ready to be angry.

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:

That says “LIU XIANG: 100 percent win!” And here it is going out for a walk with this sign, attracting a crowd:

After a day’s work, it rests. Well, the owner does, anyway, though this llama obviously wants more play.

So here it is. More play. On an iPad.

And then it’s time for a walk again. Go Liu Xiang!

But can it do what this llama did, which is predict the result of sporting contests? We shall see.

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 shocked everyone by winning a gold medal in Athens, runs from a marauding policeman, because no one except the Party is sacrosanct. “You think just because you’re an Olympic champion you can outrun a truncheon cop?” a user asks.

But maybe we’re reading too much into it. Nice photoshopping, whomever.

(H/T That’s Mandarin)