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 Liu, 31, became an icon in China after he won the country's first
Olympic men's track and field gold medal in the 110 metres hurdles
in Athens in 2004. He also won a world championship in 2007 and held
the world record in 2006 with a time of 12.88 seconds.
"I'm retiring. I want to start a new journey," Liu said in a message
posted to his microblog, blaming injury for his decision. "Though I
still have hot blood pumping through my heart, my leg has time and
again told me no."
One of China's most popular athletes, his gold medal at the 2004
Athens Olympics brought him fame and fortune rivalled only by
basketball player Yao Ming but also made his life more like that of
a rock star and placed a huge burden of expectation on him.
Liu's ambitions were checked when, despite being favorite to win his
pet event in front of home fans at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he was
forced to pull out with an Achilles injury in his first-round heat.
In a country where sport and politics are tightly interwoven and
elite athletes are handpicked from a young age to be nurtured by the
state, his withdrawal was met with tears, anger and accusations that
the athlete had let the nation down.
At the 2012 Olympics in London, Liu was disappointed again by
injury, crashing out of competition after stumbling on the first
hurdle and ending his hopes of regaining the Olympic title.
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Liu's retirement makes him the latest world class Chinese athlete to
sign off from competition in recent years, after the country's first
grand slam tennis champion Li Na retired in September and former NBA
basketball center Yao Ming walked away from the sport in 2011.
(Reporting by Michael Martina and Ben Blanchard. Editing by Patrick
Johnston)
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