That is when Liu Xiang, a 25-year-old hurdler born in the suburbs of Shanghai, should run in the 110m hurdles.

He is expected to win and crown the country's glorious centrepiece, the Bird's Nest stadium, with gold.

The China Daily warns: 'Defeat would be disaster for Liu, for China.'

Xu Jiabin, a 20-year-old student standing next to the life-size golden statue of Liu in Shanghai's Nike Store, says: 'If he does not win, the entire stadium will empty.'

Basketball star Yao Ming may be the face of China's sporting excellence in the West but, at home, Liu is the most-loved sportsman the country has ever had.

Four years ago, at the 2004 Games in Athens, he became the first male athlete to win China a gold in track and field.

It represented victory over the West, proof that the Chinese can produce a champion in a sport that does not favour the Asian physique.

'As soon as I got off the plane from Athens,' Liu says, 'all the cameras were on me. All of the focus was on me.'

And it has been that way since.

Inside China, his grin smiles out from television sets, magazine pages and giant billboards. When he broke the world record two years ago, there was a 20-minute item on the news.

In public, he is mobbed. 'I have money now but I can't shop,' he complains. He also regrets not finding a girlfriend before Athens because he has no time now.

His current worries are far more serious. Liu is no longer the unquestioned favourite in his event. Adding to the burden of unprecedented expectation is a lesion on his ankle, poor form - his best time this year was 13.18 seconds in a time-trial - and a rival whom Liu admits is born to hurdle.

When he lines up for the Olympic heats in Beijing, he will do so without a high-class outdoor race this year.

Liu pulled out of the first of two races in the United States with a sore hamstring, then was disqualified for a false start in the second.

That is not the worst news. Dayron Robles is.

The Cuban last month shaved one hundredth of a second off the Chinese's world record with a time of 12.87 seconds.

The pressure is starting to tell on Liu. Before Athens, he appeared on television singing karaoke and went out happily to greet his fans.

This time, he has gone into hiding, says the Telegraph, to avoid the media glare.

'He is very aware that the entire Chinese people are focusing their hopes on him,' says his father Liu Xuegen, a truck driver for an irrigation company in Shanghai.

Tickets for the hurdles final on Aug 21 are already changing hands for up to S$500, almost 20 times their face value.

In the Bird's Nest, 90,000 Chinese will give voice: 'Liu Xiang, jia you (speed up)! Liu Xiang, jia you!'

And the hopes of one in five people in the world will rest on his shoulders. But when the gun goes, it will come down to just one man.