Liu and coach Sun Haiping both hope that events such as the SHGGP, which will be held on Sept. 20, will help Liu improve as he prepares for the Asian Athletics Championships in November and the East Asian Games in December.

Liu was reported earlier to run a time of 13.70 seconds against the wind on Thursday.

"The run was a practical exam of Liu's training and recovery, which has made him more confident to return to the track," China's athletics head coach Feng Shuyong said.

But critics said that Liu will not be able to get his popularity back after his shock withdrawal in the Beijing Olympics.

Liu was nicknamed by netizens "No Running Liu" for pulling up lame in a qualifying heat in the Olympics. He was even linked to Fan Meizhong, a school teacher from a school in Dujiangyan, near the epicentre of the disastrous Sichuan earthquake in southeast China. Fan ran away himself and left his students behind. He was fired and fiercely slashed across the nation and was nicknamed "Running Fan."

Liu is the first and only men's track and field Olympic champion of China. This should have been enough for him in his life without the Beijing Olympics.

Many Chinese have expressed sympathy that Liu was under excessive pressure to come back from his injury in time for the Olympics. But others argued that he should be blamed not because of his defeat, but because of the way he had behaved.

"The Beijing Olympics was like a war for the Chinese fans. They have expected Liu to fight and win. But he came to the battlefield and did not fire a shot. He raised his hands high and surrendered," a professor at the Beijing Normal University commented on condition of anonymity.

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