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There was no first step, and the journey is still a thousand miles for Chinese athletics.

The face of the Beijing Olympics, hurdler Liu Xiang, winced Monday as the national hero hobbled off the track of the Bird's Nest with a painful heel injury. After a seven-year-build-up Xiang couldn't take a single barrier in the heats of the 110-metre hurdles.

At a news conference, his coach, Sun Haiping, tearfully described the nagging tendon inflammation -- which had been played down and minimized by coaches in earlier reports in the Chinese media.

"We didn't want to tell people," said Chinese head of athletics, Feng Shuyong, who understood the huge emotional impact it would have among Chinese fans. Liu had always fought through pain and previous injuries, "and we didn't know he would not compete today".

But the defending champion of the Olympic hurdles was apparently desperate with the pain. A pre-race video taken behind the scenes and shown in the track and field press room shows Liu with a constant grimace on his face. He kicked a concrete wall hard three times with his right foot, either in frustration or an attempt to change the pattern of pain. He bent and he squatted trying to stretch his Achilles tendon.

The crowd in the 91,000-seat Bird's Nest buzzed with anticipation on a bright Monday morning for the man whose face had become familiar in ads in the seven-year interim since the Chinese capital beat Toronto for the right to stage the 2008 Games.

Few noticed him limping to his starting blocks at first. But, his coach and the athletics leader would later disclose, Liu had a history of both the heel problems and a hamstring injury. The heel had flared up badly since Saturday. It hurt to put any pressure on the heel and getting into the start in blocks was apparently agonizing. He slapped his right foot in frustration.

It was to no avail. The crowd's excited buzz dissolved into restless noises, then silence as Liu limped sadly away after a false start.

Liu hadn't competed since a hamstring injury forced him to pull out of a meet in New York on May 31. He'd been training away from teammates amid rumours he was having injury problems.

An MRI examination after the team's arrival at the athlete village on Aug. 16 revealed that his chronic tendon problem at the bottom of Liu's right Achilles had become an acute. He took treatments and tried to tough out the pain, but it intensified during Liu's training session Saturday. Team officials moved desperately to find another treatment to ease his pain and let him run, Feng said.

On the morning of he first round, Liu felt the pain intensify again at a pre-race workout, Feng said. The vice-president of a local hospital was summoned to perform a massage therapy.

"We had no other way out," Feng said. "We did everything possible... I saw personally how [pained] Liu Xiang was."

The massage had some effect, but not enough to make running feasible.

"Until he went to the call room, he was determined to compete," said Feng.

"I just talked with Liu Xiang. He is very depressed. He said he would not drop out of the competition unless it was absolutely necessary... unless the pain was intolerable and he had no other way out."

A worker at the National Stadium named Hu Qinxu said the hurdler's coach weepily regretted having continued to work Liu hard when he had nagging injuries. He won't be able to compete before the end of the year, Sun said, "He can barely walk. He was in tears and he is very depressed."

Sun said three doctors tried to help at the last minute warmup.

"No matter what they did, they could not help him standing up, because once he stood up, there was pressure on the heel," Sun said between breakdowns.

Feng, leaning over to stroke the arm of his coach, asked for no more questions on the point.

Liu had been the personification of a Chinese breaking through to excel on the world stage. He's in TV commercials, ads for Olympic sponsor Coca-Cola, Nike shoes, Lenovo computers the Baisha Corporation. He's ever on the wrapper of a torech-shaped ice-cream treat. But the Bisha endorsement brought criticism. Baisha's cororate symbol os the flying crane, which works well with images of the 6-foot-2 Liu in flight over the hurdles. But one of Baisha's major businesses is tobacco, and that's brought steam from parts of the public and other athletes.

The collective desire for him to win was enormous, fans at the stadium said. Perhaps it was overwhelming.

Feng said Liu couldn't escape the weighty message that so much was riding on his victory at Beijing's Olympics. "No matter where he goes, he sees his own picture in the streets and on the Internet... it's all great pressure," Feng said.

"He's a great athlete, unique that he can psychologically stand pressure that no other athlete can stand."

Thursday night's 110-metre hurdles final was anticipated as a highlight of the Beijing meet. Liu was expected to confront Cuba's Dayron Robles, the man who broke Liu's world record in June.

Robles, world record holder at 12.87 seconds, won his heat but at 13.39 seconds. He will go unchallenged in the final with contenders Liu and Terrence Trammell of the United States both out with injuries.

Liu won the gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics in a record time of 12.91, and later set the world mark of 12.88 in 2006. Robles of Cuba broke that record on June 12.