Liu Xiang to say goodbye personally at Diamond League Shanghai

Liu kisses his hurdle after falling in a 110m hurdles heat at the London 2012 Olympic Games, on Aug 7, 2012. [Photo/IC]

BEIJING -- China's "flying man" Liu Xiang will say goodbye personally at Diamond League Shanghai on May 17, according to the organizing committee.

The men's 110m hurdles will see China's 24-year-old Xie Wenjun, the defending champion, try to retain his title. Xie is considered as the successor of Liu, but still lack of convincing results.

Liu, the China's first male Olympic champion on athletics, had announced his retirement on April 7, but only through weibo, a Chinese equivalent to Twitter, ending his 19-year dramatic career.

Liu had achieved good results in Shanghai. As the Golden Grand Prix updated to Diamond League in 2010, Liu won in front of his home crowd for four times in his all seven attendance.

The best known athletics Olympic champion in China was also a two-time quitter at the Olympic Games. He stunned the world twice at two consecutive Olympic Games with almost the same reason -- ruptured Achilles tendon.

Liu made the history to win the 110m hurdles at the 2004 Athens Games, equalling Briton Colin Jackson's world record of 12.91 seconds. He shattered the world record when he clocked 12.88 seconds at an IAAF meet in Lausanne in 2006, and he won the world champion in Osaka 2007 to become the first male hurdler to own Olympic and world titles and the world record at the same time.

Even after the tragic injury at Beijing Olympic Games, Liu managed to be back on his top form with a strong will. But he had never come back to the track after the London Games.