BEIJING -- Chinese hurdler and Olympic champion Liu Xiang has run into a completely new arena after being elected a member of the nation's top political advisory body.

China's Liu Xiang competes in the men's 110m hurdles at the Daegu Athletics Meeting 2007, southeast of Seoul, October 3, 2007. [Agencies]

Liu, 25, was one of the youngest among the 2,237 people chosen as members of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Sunday's Beijing News reported.

Liu, the world record holder of the men's 110m hurdles at 12.88 seconds, became a hero in China after the first Chinese male athlete to win track and field gold at the 2004 Athens Games.

Other sports personalities, including Xu Haifeng, China's first Olympic gold medalist, and Ma Junren, coach of several star distance runners, are no longer members of the political advisory body.

According to the name list, only 1,005, or 44.9 percent of the members of the 10th CPPCC National Committee retain their posts and the average age of new committee members is 55.3, nearly two years younger than that of the present committee.

Wang Gang, member of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Political Bureau, and Chen Yunlin, director of the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office, made their first appearance on the CPPCC member list.

Also among the new names are Yang Kaisheng, president of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Ma Yunhua, president of the China Merchants Bank, Jiang Chaoliang, chairman of the Bank of Communications, and TV anchorman Cui Yongyuan.

The list also includes 1,345 non-Communist Party members, about 60 percent of the total.