With fire in his heart, Liu Xiang tells rival hurdler he will be back

Injured hurdler Liu Xiang threw down the gauntlet to his Cuban rival, gold medallist Dayron Robles, in a column published yesterday by the Shanghai-based Jiefang Daily.

Liu, whose withdrawal from the 110-metres hurdles event stunned the country, wrote that after he watched Thursday's final on television, he felt 'fire burning in my chest'.

'I cannot appear in the 'Bird's Nest' today, but I believe that I will be on the track again at next year's World Championships and even at the London Olympic Games,' he wrote.

'Robles, wait for me.'

The article featured prominently in the sports section, but the newspaper's management declined to give more details about it.

'If I hadn't had the injuries, I could have been one of them,' he wrote, referring to the finalists. 'I don't know if I could have beaten Robles, but as an athlete, I could give it a go and do my best and then I wouldn't have any regrets.'

Liu also wrote that Robles had done well although he had not broken any Olympic or world records given the slippery conditions. It rained heavily in Beijing on Thursday.

'On a rainy day like this ... it wasn't easy for him to clock such time,' Liu wrote. 'It showed that he was in very top form.'

Expectations had been running high that the hugely popular star hurdler from Shanghai would deliver a gold medal on home soil, but the gold medallist at the 2004 Athens Olympics was felled by injuries.

Speculation over his injuries had been rife before his sensational withdrawal from competition on Monday due to nagging pain in the Achilles tendon in his right foot.

Liu wrote that he was treated with traditional Chinese medicine for the swelling.

Meanwhile, Xinhua quoted Qiu Weichang, a deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Sports Bureau, as saying that medical specialists in Beijing and Shanghai were working on a detailed regimen for Liu.

Mr Qiu said medical experts had been calling the bureau to offer suggestions and treatment plans.

He added that Liu was a great athlete and that his health and sporting career were more important than just winning a gold medal in the Olympic Games.