Former Olympic gold medalist hurdler and golden boy for millions of Chinese, Liu Xiang, limped off the track today, taking away with him the hopes of defending the gold and reclaiming his world record from Cuba's Dayron Robles.

Within minutes there were already 8000 Chinese commenting on the shocking turn of events. Some understanding, others, not so much. Perhaps among the angry ones are those who placed their bets on Liu and failed to pay heed to his hamstring injuries that were reported last month.

The star athlete took to the starting blocks with grimaces of pain etched across his face and reached back to slap his right achilles. NBC Olympics reported it as an achilles injury, with a report from Liu Xiang's coach last week claiming that the runner was "very close to his best form."

VIDEO UPDATE: For those outside of China who were unable to catch the five minute blip of airtime given to this by NBC, we certainly found it hard to believe that he was faking after watching this clip a few times...