INQUIRER Sports

BEIJING—A day after Michael Phelps packed up his swim bag one last time, the Beijing Olympics lost its biggest homegrown star.

Defending 110-meter hurdles champion Liu Xiang, one of the most recognizable faces in China and even more popular than basketball player Yao Ming, walked away from the blocks after pulling up during a false start in qualifying Monday at the Bird’s Nest.

“We worked hard every day, but the result was as you see and it’s really hard to take,” said Liu’s coach, Sun Haiping.

Millions of Chinese who watched Phelps win a record eight gold medals in the pool last week were hoping for a similar kind of boost from their favorite son.

Some of Liu’s fellow heat competitors were shocked.

“I feel so sorry that he was not in,” Mohammed Issa Al-thawadi of Qatar said. “I really wanted to be next to Liu’s lane because he is such a big champion.”

David Ilariani of Georgia said the pullout was “a big surprise for everybody.”

“People were shouting because they couldn’t believe he was finished,” Ilariani said.

As thousands watched Liu’s start block sit empty while his heat got under way, Emma Snowsill of Australia was nearing the finish line in the women’s triathlon.

Snowsill, a three-time world champion, took gold in the 1.5-kilometer swim, 40-kilometer bicycle ride and 10-kilometer run in 1 hour, 58 minutes, 27 seconds. Vanessa Fernandes of Portugal was second, a minute behind, and another Australian, Emma Moffatt, took the bronze.

“Coming down on the last lap I had to throw whatever I had left,” Snowsill said. “There’s nothing like running scared.”

Chen Yibing extended China’s unbeaten run of gold—five in five events—in men’s gymnastics by winning the rings. The two-time world champion was perfectly still on nearly every move in registering 16.600 points that blew away the field of eight.

Britain won the men’s team pursuit at the Laoshan velodrome, knocking nearly two seconds off the world record it set a day earlier. The team of Ed Clancy, Paul Manning, Geraint Thomas and individual pursuit gold medalist Bradley Wiggins finished the 4,000 meters in 3:53.314, almost overtaking the silver medal-winning Denmark in the final.

New Zealand beat Australia to take the bronze medal.

World champion Marianne Vos of the Netherlands won the women’s points race, the only rider to successfully lap the field. She finished with 30 points, ahead of Yoanka Gonzalez of Cuba, who won the final sprint to take silver with 18.

In sailing, Jonas Warrer and Martin Kirketerp Ibsen of Denmark were declared the official winners of the 49er skiff gold medal in sailing after protests against their winning race delayed the result by nearly a day in Qingdao.