Liu's camp beg for peace and quiet

After enjoying a six-month sabbatical from the grueling demands of training - a sabbatical interlaced with much soul searching and some surgery - Liu Xiang returned home to Shanghai on Thursday following his debut appearance at China's annual parliamentary session.

China's top hurdler is often front-page news in this country starved of track and field stars. Now his handlers are keen to keep the former Olympic and reigning world champion under wraps and away from the media spotlight to give him the best chance of re-hitting his peak - possibly in time for the Athletics World Championships in August.

"We're going to have him train behind closed doors to avoid distractions," his coach Sun Haiping was quoted as saying by the Shanghai Morning Post last week. "We hope the public and media will bear with us and we will keep the public updated on how he is doing in due time."