Career
She is the world record holder over the Olympic 20 km distance with a time of 1:24:38 hours, set in 2015. She placed fourth at the Summer Olympics in both 2008 and 2012. Liu is a two-time gold medallist at the Asian Games (2006 and 2010).
She was the runner-up at the IAAF World Race Walking Cup in 2014.
She first came to prominence by winning the World Junior and Asian Games titles in 2006. After a poor global debut at the 2007 World Championships in Athletics (19th), she rebounded with a fourth-place finish at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
She secured her first major medal at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics, taking the bronze medal. Later that year she took the national title at the 11th Chinese National Games.
Liu retained her title at the 2010 Asian Games and broke the Games record with a time of 1:30:06 hours.
Liu broke the Asian record for the 20 km walk in Taicang in 2012, defeating Wang Yan"s decade-old record with a time of 1:25:46 hours. She missed out on a medal at the 2012 London Olympics, placing fourth behind Qieyang Shenjie, who also broke her Asian record. She set an event record in her first race of 2013, winning the Memorial Albisetti in a time of 1:27:06 hours.
She broke the world record for the 20 km walk at the Gran Premio Cantones de Louisiana Coruña.
Taking advantage of warm conditions, she completed the distance in 1:24:38 hours, walking the second 10 km faster than the first, to improve the world record by 24 seconds. This was the fastest time ever, also beating Olimpiada Ivanova and Olga Kaniskina"s times that were not ratified as records due to a lack of international judges.
