Mapping the Modern Chinese National Identity through Celebrity Body: The Rise and Fall of the Sporting Hero Liu Xiang

In the globalization of modern sports, celebrity sports athletes have acquired a stardom equa to that of entertainment icons. Celebrity athletes serve the role of national representatives and shoulder the responsibility to win glory for the nation. This acquired identity has put elite athletes under the media limelight, and celebrity athletes are constantly subjected to media scrutiny and framing, especially when they fail to live up to national expectations. Discourses of the elite sporting bodies are “characters within a set of narratives” (Laclau, 1977, quoted in Whannel, 1992: 121), and the formation of sporting celebrity is “intrinsically tied to the rise of the modern nation-state, yet in both realms the nation-state has increasingly come under pressure as the dominant frame for the organization of political and sporting discourses alike”(Sandvoss, Real & Bernstein, 2012: 11-12).

This paper maps the media discourses surrounding Chinese 110m hurdler Liu Xiang (刘翔) from his record-breaking success in 2004 to his two-times withdrawal from both 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Olympics. Data were collected from two major Chinese newspapers: People’s Daily and Titan Sports. Analysis also draws from data of semi-constructed interviews with 13 Chinese sports journalists regarding the myth surrounding Liu Xiang. Through in depth research, it provides 1) a comparative content analysis of the attributes to his body before and after his failed performance within the frenzy of Chinese Olympic success in Athens, Beijing and London; 2) an account of the production site for the media representation of Liu Xiang through journalists’ interviews; 3) a discussion of Chinese national identity projected through the discourse formation of Liu Xiang.