Former Olympic champion Liu Xiang has prepared a new start technique he hopes will help give him an edge ahead of his bid for a second 110m hurdles title at the Daegu world championships in South Korea.
The Chinese, who swept the title in Osaka in 2007, will leap the first hurdle after seven steps instead of his usual eight, a technique he hopes could shave at least five-hundredths of a second off his times.
“Compared to top athletes like [Olympic champion Dayron] Robles and [world No. 2 David] Oliver, I still have to catch up,” the 27-year-old said in comments published by Chinese media on Wednesday. “So I hope I can master the technique and reduce my distance from them in the first half of the race.”
Photo: Reuters
Liu’s gold at the 2004 Athens Games made him his country’s first man to win an Olympic track title but he has struggled to reach his world-beating best since limping out of his title defense at the Beijing Games in 2008 with an Achilles injury.
Liu marked a small step on his long road to redemption by winning his third straight Asian Games title at Guangzhou in November, but his time of 13.09 seconds was well below his best of 12.88, set at a grand prix meeting in Switzerland in 2007 and a world record at the time.
Cuban Robles owns the current world mark of 12.87, set months before taking Liu’s Olympic title.
Liu is likely to test the technique in the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Shanghai next month. The world championships start in August.
“You mustn’t fear failure or loss. It will be fine ... If [the technique’s] not successful, we’ll just change it back to eight,” Liu said.
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