BEIJING, China — Rarely has a nation’s pride and expectations rested on one athlete’s foot. But for the upcoming Summer Olympics in Beijing, China’s collective hopes may pivot on Yao Ming’s left foot.

Yao Ming is rehabilitating from surgery.

Yao Ming is China’s biggest sports star. But the weight of 1.3 billion people’s hopes and dreams is a heavy burden to bear, even for a man who stands more than 7 feet (213 centimeters) tall and weighs more than 300 pounds (136 kilograms).

By excelling in the National Basketball Association in the United States, the towering Shanghai native has single-handedly put China on the world map of professional basketball. He is the tallest symbol of the NBA’s booming global appeal.

Yao is idolized as the pillar of the “walking Great Wall”; he has helped make basketball quite possibly the most popular sport in China. Small wonder Chinese basketball fans pin high hopes on Yao to lead China’s national team in the Olympic Games, which starts on August 8 in Beijing.

Yao was averaging 22 points and 10.8 rebounds per game Yao when he suffered a stress fracture to his left foot in February, forcing him out of the NBA season. That came as a blow to the Houston Rockets and their fans. “No one saw this coming,” one blogger wrote. “I feel like crying.” But that was nothing compared to the shock that rippled through China. Would their national hero recover in time to represent China at the Olympics? Lingering doubts sent fans and sports officials into a panic. Yao himself conceded that missing the Games would be “the biggest loss to my career.”

Yao Ming has already come a long way from his rookie years. In June 27, 2002, I interviewed him in our CNN Beijing bureau the day he was picked by Houston Rockets as the NBA’s No. 1 draft that year. Shy and soft-spoken, Yao then could only muster a smattering of English. “Hi, Houston,” he said haltingly during a live interview. “I’m coming.” The Rockets picked him for his towering frame, soft shooting touch and “limitless potential,” but doubts lingered whether he had what it would take to break into the world’s elite league.

Six years into his NBA career, Yao Ming is now a superstar athlete celebrated in America and idolized in China. Yao’s demeanor on and off the court has endeared him to the media and public, who admire his modesty and maturity. After a massive earthquake devastated Sichuan province last May, Yao was one of the first sports celebrities to pledge donations for the quake relief. Still, he was a target of criticisms, in the Chinese media and the blogosphere. Critics complained that his initial pledge was too little compared to what he earns yearly in NBA salary and commercial endorsements. (Forbes magazine ranks Yao as one of the richest persons in China.) Last week, Yao unveiled the Yao Foundation Web site — yaofoundation.cn — which aims to leverage his iconic stature to generate funds for future philanthropic projects, such as building schools for Sichuan’s quake survivors.

Meantime, Yao is itching to play ball. Three months after undergoing surgery and rehabilitation, the NBA superstar is back in Beijing to train with China’s national team. Could Yao cope with the mounting pressure?

“To me this Olympic Games is biggest opportunity of my life,” he told reporters who packed a hotel ballroom in Beijing. “Intense pressure always goes hand-in-hand with major competitions.” Yao says his foot is now 80 percent healed and he expects to be fit to play soon. He now wears a customized pair of sneakers, “made according to the shape of my feet and the average tension they sustain.”

Yao and his team will open their Olympic campaign against Team USA on August 10. Their group also includes world champion Spain, African champion Angola and two European qualifiers yet to be determined. “The U.S. and Spain are much stronger than China and I don’t think we can beat them,” Yao opines. “So if we want to advance to the next round, we will have to beat Angola and one of the two qualifiers from Europe.”

That will demand optimum contribution from Yao. His fans are wary that his hasty return on court could put his career at risk. The physical rigors of playing with the world’s basketball stars have taken their toll on his body. In the past two and a half years, Yao has suffered a broken foot, a broken leg, and an infected big toe. Full recovery from a stress fracture usually takes one year, but the Olympics is just a few weeks away and Yao says he is determined to play for China in August.

Would he be trying as hard if the Olympics were not going to be in Beijing? The 27-year-old Yao says: “Since there is no ‘if’ that the Olympics will be held in Beijing, I too have no ‘if’.”

– With additional reporting by Sherisse Pham