Mixed indoor bag for Liu

Olympic star now turning his attention to outdoor season and honing technique

China's star hurdler, Liu Xiang, concluded his indoor campaign this season with one gold, one silver and one false start in the three events in Europe over the past 20 days.

Although he narrowly missed out on his second indoor world championship title on Sunday, Liu and his coach are satisfied with the opening of his Olympic season.

"We are satisfied with a silver at the indoor championships, although his run was not good in the final," said Liu's coach, Sun Haiping."Now the indoor season has finished and we still have a lot of things to do in preparation for the outdoor events - the 110m hurdles is more important."

Liu started his indoor season with a victory at the Birmingham meet on Feb 18. He missed out on a second title at the meet in Stockholm a week later with a false start in the final.

In the men's 60m hurdles final at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Istanbul, Turkey, on Sunday night, Liu, the 2008 world indoor champion, was defeated by Aries Merritt of the US and had to settle for silver. Merritt finished in 7.44 seconds, while Liu clocked 7.49.

"Liu was in too much of a hurry at the start," said Sun. "Before the final, everything went really well and we were fully ready for the race. But in the final, when Liu realized Merritt was too fast, he was in a hurry."

Liu also admitted Merritt affected his own beat.

"I got out in a rush and wasn't able to control my technique over the first hurdle," Liu said after the race. "I hit the second hurdle, which cost me speed. By the third one, I felt there was no chance for me."

Reaching the final easily after two rounds, Liu, the former Olympic and world champion in the 110m hurdles, was expected to claim gold - especially in the absence of his archrival and current world record holder, Cuban Dayron Robles, who withdrew before the event due to injury and also strong American hurdler David Oliver.

However, Liu's fans weren't too disappointed in the 29-year-old Shanghainese's silver effort.

According to a survey on sina.com, 35.6 percent of the respondents said a silver medal was a fair outcome for Liu as he is still working on his new technique. In another survey, on qq.com, 54.02 percent of the respondents felt Liu just had a poor race in Istanbul and he is still strong enough to win Olympic gold.

In other events in Istanbul, China's Zhang Guowei finished fourth in the men's high jump with a leap of 2.31 meters - a national record. Dong Bin finished eighth in the men's triple jump, while Wei Yongli attained a season best of 7.35 sec in the women's 60m hurdles semis.

leilei@chinadaily.com.cn