China's hurdling star Liu Xiang is making news ahead of Saturday's Shanghai Diamond League meet. The hometown favourite took centre stage at the pre-race press conference on Friday. He'll try to top the American trio of David Oliver, Aries Merritt and Jason Richardson in the 110m hurdles and defend his Shanghai title.
Liu barely edged Oliver in an extremely close race last year and the American will be looking to go just a bit faster this time around. Merritt took the 60m indoor championship over Liu in Turkey in March, and he'll want to prove he is the fastest outdoors.
Richardson is the third American challenger. He beat Liu in the controversial World Championship final in Daegu last year where initial winner Dayron Robles was disqualified for interfering with Liu, an incident that might have cost Liu the race. Liu Xiang harbored no hard feelings towards Robles over what happened then, and he says he feels the same way now.
"After last year's incident, the relationship between me and Robles is even better... I wish he could attend the Shanghai event and I always want to race with him. A healthy rivalry is important to the sport and it motivates me to continue improving my skills. "