Another nice article about Liu Xiang from Mary Nicole Nazzaro of the IAAF website:

The combination of world-class fields, clear skies and pleasant temperatures, and a thrilling victory by the city’s most famous son, Liu Xiang, worked perfectly to make the second annual Shanghai Golden Grand Prix a great success at Shanghai Stadium on Saturday (23) evening.

Liu overcomes slow start to capture thriller over Johnson

The marquee matchup was of course the men’s 110m Hurdles, and Liu Xiang is sending the message over and over to his rivals that he is just about unbeatable when he runs in China. Despite the absence of Americans Dominique Arnold and Terrence Trammell, the race lived up to its expectations as a continuation of the classic rivalry between Liu and 35-year-old veteran Allen Johnson of the U.S.

After a slow response to the starter’s fast gun – a 0.201 reaction time - Liu played catch-up with Johnson, his friendly rival who unexpectedly got the better of him last week in Athens. Liu caught Johnson by the ninth hurdle and by the time he cleared number ten, he was out in front. Liu clocked 13.07, just 0.02 seconds slower than his stadium-record 13.05 set in last year’s meet, to Johnson’s 13.09. The rest of the field was far behind these two Olympic gold medallists: third place went to Aries Merritt of the U.S. in 13.34. As expected, Liu was swarmed by photographers after the race and did a live television interview on the track that was broadcast nationwide directly following his victory. The hero of Chinese track and field had delivered once again in front of his hometown crowd.

Afterwards, Liu was whisked away from the mixed zone without offering comments to the assembled media. He left the media show to Johnson, who answered “Sure!” with a smile when asked if he would like to run against Liu again in the future. Asked whether he slowed down on purpose at the end to give Liu the win, Johnson just smiled again and said “No…Liu Xiang’s a great competitor.” Whether Johnson can put another two years on his legs to make it to another Olympics in 2008 remains to be seen, but his friendly rivalry with Liu and his tremendous sportsmanship should make as many headlines as Liu’s utter dominance in the hurdles when the address of the competition stadium is anywhere inside the boundaries of the People’s Republic of China.