Corporate sponsors including Nike, Visa, Coca-Cola and Lenovo, among others, have shown faith in injured Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang after his abrupt withdrawal from the Beijing Olympics on Monday.
On Tuesday, full-page Nike print ads featuring the face of the track star ran in all the country's major newspapers.
It read: "Love competition; Love risking your pride; Love winning it back; Love giving it everything you've got; Love the glory; Love the pain; Love sport even when it breaks your heart."
"The advertisement, which we made overnight, expresses our support for him," said Zhu Jinqian, Nike Media China director.
"Nike will definitely continue its cooperation with Liu," she added.
The group, which signed an ad agreement with the Shanghai native worth 4 million yuan (around 583,000 U.S. dollars), provided specially-designed sportswear for the 25-year-old with the Nike logo for the Games.
Shortly after his exit with a foot injury, Nike issued a statement reading: "We understand his feelings now and expect his comeback."
Since his gold medal performance in the 110-meter hurdles in Athens in 2004, Liu has become one of the country's most familiar faces through adverts for more than a dozen domestic and foreign brands on TV, the Internet, billboards and buses.
Most so far, including Visa, Nike, Coca-Cola, Ping An Insurance and the Yili Group, have voiced support for Liu and a willingness to continue their association with him.
"We believe that it takes courage for him to make the decision," said a supportive statement issued on Monday by China insurance giant Ping An, which hired the sports star as an image representative.
"We do not want anyone to risk his health for a gold medal," it said.
Keith Kaerhoeg, group communications director of Coca-Cola Pacific, said the company would certainly continue its dealings with the track star and wished him a full and early recovery.
However, Liu's stunning exit was expected to trigger a series of commercial after-shocks. Some analysts estimated at least 3 billion yuan of corporate sponsors' revenue would evaporate after the dramatic withdrawal.
Hours after his pullout, Nike decided to make a modification of all its adverts in print media. But Liu's image would still keep its core position in them.
"We altered our advertisements to adjust to the new situation, which would not be suitable for the previous ones," said Nike's Zhu.
Lenovo, the country's largest computer maker, canceled Liu's TV advert after his withdrawal on Monday.
But Li Lan, the vice president in charge of Olympic marketing with Lenovo, responded on Tuesday the move was a normal action following the company's plan and was unrelated with Liu's pullout.
(Xinhua News Agency August 19, 2008)