Liu Xiang has apologized for pulling out of the men’s 110 meter hurdles yesterday.

“There’s so many people concerned about me and who support me. I feel very sorry. But there’s really nothing I could do,” a downcast, disconsolate Liu told China Central Television in an interview aired Tuesday.

I don’t know why he didn’t pull out earlier if already knew he was injured. I wonder if he was obliged to at least show up to the track, even though he knew he couldn’t run.

“I didn’t know why things turned out this way,” he said, in the Xinhua translation. “I wanted to hang on. But I couldn’t. It was unbearable. If I had finished the race, I would have risked my tendon. I could not describe my feeling at that moment.”