To compete or not to compete

In the run up to XXIX Olympiad, the following had injuries:

• Tyson Gay, USA - triple gold medallist in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m at last year's World Athletics Championships in Osaka. He pulled his hamstring while competing in the 200m at the US trials in July and if it was any other year, he would have probably ended his season right then.
• Susanna Kallur, Sweden - gold medallist in the 60m hurdles at the World Indoor Athletic Championships in March. She pulled a hamstring shortly after Valencia.
  
• Paula Radcliffe, GB - world record holder in the marathon and winner of last year's New York Marathon. Had a stress fracture and was bitten by a poisonous spider.
  
• Nicola Saunders, GB - silver medallist in the 400m in Osaka. Sustained injuries of various types in the earlier part of the season - the Olympics arrived too soon for her.
• Kelly Sotherton, GB - bronze medallist in the heptathlon in Osaka. Had a kidney infection amongst other injuries
• Chris Tomlinson, GB - British long jump record holder. Sustained a muscle tear while competing at the London Grand Prix in July.
  
• Liu Xiang, China - gold medallist in the 110m hurdles in Osaka. He hurt his leg back in May and has been carrying a foot injury for a number of years.

So why did they come to Beijing in the first place, knowing in their hearts of hearts that they probably would not be able to do themselves justice? For Liu Xiang, the defending Olympic champion and the face of these games, after becoming China's first athlete to win a gold medal in a track event, the expectations of 1.3 billion people played a part in him putting himself through what by all accounts seems to be a very painful ordeal to the start line. For Paula Radcliffe, haunted by the memory of Athens where she failed to finish, Beijing was to be her redemption.

I'm sure that for all of them it was a case of, I've spent the last four years training for Beijing and I'll be damned if I'll let a kidney infection/stress fracture/hamstring pull/muscle tear get in the way of my ambitions - unfortunately for them, their bodies objected, protested and eventually shutdown. To paraphrase, the mind was willing, but the body was weak.