Olympic champion Liu Xiang was forced to quit the season's first race with an ankle injury in the Shanghai indoor tournament on Thursday.

The 23-year-old, men's 110m hurdles champion at the Athens Olympics in 2004, said he had to miss the competition because of the ankle injury sustained during Wednesday's training.

Liu, also the silver medalist in last year's Helsinki world championships, also suffered an early setback in the season's opener last year, when he was disqualified for jumping the gun twice.

The Shanghai native had said early this year that he would be careful about his rhythm at the event to avoid similar mistakes.

重点词汇

quit  v. 离开，停止