What price Liu Xiang’s legs?

China’s 100m hurdler, Olympic gold medal prospect and all-round pin-up boy Liu Xiang has just had his legs insured for USD 13.3 million. The policy, which has been donated by insurance firm Ping An of China, sponsor of the Chinese athletics team, covers the hurdler’s legs in the event of serious injury sustained during a race or training. Apart from exactly how they arrived at this valuation, what’s also not clear is whether it would cover him should he attempt to, say, hurdle a security barrier after a night on the lash and fall flat on his face, twisting his ankle in the process, as your correspondent may or may not have done after one too many a couple of years ago. I guess you’d have to read the terms and conditions to find out.

Liu appears less than convinced about the valuation placed on his most prized assets. “You can’t really put a concrete figure on them, they’re priceless,” the Beijing News quoted him as saying in response. Still, a nice piece of PR by Ping An of China – someone at their agency was definitely switched on to the kind of random, quirky stories the media loves. Perhaps, contrary to Eveline’s PR encounters thus far, someone in the Chinese publicity industry actually knows what they are doing. Which leads seamlessly into a promotional plug of our own: one of our freelancers, Jonathan Haagen, is writing an in-depth feature on the Chinese PR industry for next month’s issue.

Still, Liu’s insurance policy pales in comparison to that taken out by another sporting pin-up, David Beckham, who last year insured himself for USD 100 million and who, incidentally, made a six-hour whirlwind promotional visit to Beijing over the weekend - aren’t we lucky. Since deciding to go and play soccerball over in the good ‘ole US of A for the LA Galaxy, Goldenballs has spent most of his time lying on the treatment table, with some experts suggesting that his persistent injuries could spell a premature end to his playing career. His insurers must be getting rather nervous…

Matthew Plowright