Jack Voelkel
Eric Liddell: Olympian and missionary
In many ways Liddell was the kind of person who, in my heart of hearts,
I'd always dreamed of being. . . .Few lives have more to teach us about the virtue of honor.
(Sir David Puttnam, producer of Chariots of Fire).[i]
Tom McKerchar, Athletic Director of Edinburgh University slowly carried the schedule of the 1924 Olympics to his friend, Eric Liddell, his star athlete, while Eric was studying for a class. “Eric, the first heats for the 100-meter race are to be held on a Sunday, July 6th, to be exact.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Eric looked up from his book and replied, “Then I’m not running…Tom, do you really know why I can’t run?...If I run in a race that honors me or other men, I am not remembering God’s Sabbath, And if I start ignoring one of God’s commands, I may as well ignore all of them. But I can’t do that because I love God too much” (Caughey p. 72).
China born
Eric Liddell was born in Tientsin, North China, son of James and Mary Liddell, Scottish missionaries with the London Missionary Society. He grew up Siaochang, situated on the Great Plain that was hot and dusty in summer and freezing cold in winter. They lived in a compound that consisted of four large brick houses, the schools, a hospital, and a chapel for church services. The village consisted of small houses made of mud, another high mud wall, and a gate (Caughey p. 13).
He learned Chinese from his playmates and enjoyed the warmth of his home that consisted of his parents, an older brother, Rob, and younger sister, Jenny. His father was keenly interested in sports and one day called the family together to share the exciting news that Wyndham Halswelle, a Scot, had won a silver medal at the Olympic games of 1906. “Do you all realize what this means?” he asked them. He’s the first Scot to win a medal in track at the Olympics!” But he added, “Eric, winning a medal isn’t that important. What matters is how you run the race of life,” and then quoted 1 Corinthians 9:26: Run in such a way as to get the prize, referring to God’s approval.
Eltham College, London
When Eric was 5 years old, the Liddells went to Scotland for a year’s furlough, but when they returned to China the next year, they left him and his older brother in Eltham College, a boarding school for boys. Of the 200 students, 126 were the sons of missionaries. At first Eric was thin and almost sickly, but nourishing food and exercise helped him develop a strong, healthy body. He and his brother excelled in all sports, especially rugby, cricket, and track. As time went by Eric was elected captain of both the cricket and rugby teams. In his senior year he ran the 100-yard dash in 10.2 seconds, a record that would not be broken at Eltham for 80 years! That year he was voted the school’s best overall athlete.
However, these successes did not go to his head. The Headmaster George Robertson said of him, “Eric was entirely without vanity, yet he was enormously popular. Very early he showed signs of real character. His standards had been set for him long before he came to school. There was no false pride about him, but he knew what he stood for” (Caughey p. 43).
In addition to his studies and athletic activities, he attended Elthan’s Bible studies regularly, and became confirmed in the Scottish Congregational Church. He also began visiting the sick at the nearby Islington Medical Mission. He was friendly and outgoing to all his school mates, especially to those who were not as physically gifted as he.
Edinburgh University
After high school, Eric entered Edinburgh University to study pure science with the aim of one day teaching in the Anglo-Chinese College in Tientsin. He played on the rugby team and was chosen to represent Scotland in seven international meets (Ward). Joining the track team, within months he was winning races. At the Scottish Amateur Athletics Association Championship, he won both the 100 yard and 220 yard races, setting a Scottish AAA record in the second. G. Innes Stewart, the man considered the next Scottish champion, called him the “new luminary.” When he returned to campus, the university saw such potential in him that they assigned him an athletic trainer, Tom McKerchar.
As Tom watched Eric run, he seemed more “like a prancing circus pony than a world-class runner” (Caughery p. 51) for his unorthodox running style, but the trainer knew he could work with him and help him run even faster. Eric, commenting on Tom’s massaging of his leg muscles, reported, “[Tom] took me in hand, pounded me about like a piece of putty, pushed this muscle this way and that muscle the other way, in order, as he said, to get me into shape” (Caughey p. 53). He taught Eric how to start faster, how to cross the finish line most effectively, and even gave him tips on his diet. He kept running and soon the Glasgow Herald said of him, “Unknown four months ago, he today stands in the forecourt of British sprinters.” He went on to set a British record for the 100-yard dash of 9.7 seconds that would not be broken for 35 years.
Facing the demanding school of training, Eric talked to his mother, who was then on furlough, about his running. “Mother, does God really want me to run?” She replied, “God has given you a tremendous gift, Eric, of that I am sure….You won’t go to China for a few years, my son….Perhaps this is God’s plan. To run now, and to give God all the glory for your gift” (Caughey p. 52).
Evangelist
The Glasgow Students’ Evangelical Union (GSEU) had mobilized a group of Christian students to present the Gospel in various industrial towns, as part of a “Manhood Campaign.” Knowing of Eric’s growing fame as an athlete, the students’ leader asked him if he would give a message. Right before the invitation, Eric had received a letter from his sister, Jenny, which included Isaiah 41:10: “Do not fear, for I am with you…I will strengthen you and help you.” Thus encouraged, when the invitation came, he agreed, though he had never given a talk in public before.
That night, before 80 working men, speaking slowly and quietly, he talked to them as if he was having a conversation with each one. “Do you want to know the God I love? He has given me strength when I thought I had nothing left. And He has given me these words when I thought I couldn’t speak…Accept God tonight, and tomorrow you will feel a love you have never known before” (Caughey p. 61). The following morning every newspaper in Scotland reported the meeting. Eric became a regular speaker with the GSEU and during the next years would speak to thousands throughout Great Britain.
The Paris Olympics
When Eric announced to his trainer that he would not run on the Lord’s Day, he was viciously attacked by the British press. “A traitor to Scottish sporting, to all that Wyndham Halswelle stood for” (Caughey p. 73). Another journalist suggested that Eric was not running just to get more publicity. A British noble was quoted as saying, “To play the game is the only thing in life that matters” (Caughey p. 73). Eric’s decision indicated that he had another priority. He decided to train for the 220 and 440 meter sprints.
The Christian History Institute records:
The pace [Liddel] put himself through to get to the Olympics is amazing. In the Spring of 1924, in addition to training three times a week for the Olympics, he attended classes, completed a grueling round of final exams, led a young people’s group at Morningside Congregational Church, and spoke at meetings. He also competed in the Pennsylvania University relays. In the six weeks before the Summer games, he ran in eight track meets.
The heat was brutal the two weeks of the Olympic Games that summer of 1924 in Paris, climbing up to 110 degrees. Eric won a bronze metal in the 220 meters, making him the first Scot to win any track medal since the famed Wyndham Halswelle in 1906.
On Friday, he was to run the 440, not his best distance. Then unexpectedly, a masseur the British team had hired just for the Olympics, ran up to him. He said little, but handed him a small piece of paper that had been folded once, then turned quickly to go. Written with care, the message read, “In the Old Book it says, ‘He that honors me I will honor.’ Wishing you the best of success always” (Caughey p. 91).[ii] To the astonishment of all the spectators, before the race began, the Queen’s Cameron Highlanders, a bagpipe band dressed in kilts and bearskin headdresses, marched around the track playing the traditional Scottish “fight” song, “The Campbells are Coming.”
As was his custom, Eric went from one runner to the next, extending his hand and wishing them well. When the gun sounded, they were off. He ran the first 220 meters in record time, too fast, Tom thought, with stop watch in hand. In the final stretch, Eric was in the lead, “his face to the sky, arms flailing like twin windmills, knees pumping almost to his chest, with the finish tape in sight.” He finished five meters ahead of his nearest rival. His time was 47.6 seconds, a world record. He had brought home the first gold medal won by a Scotsman (Caughey p. 93). Asked later about the secret of his success, Eric quipped, “I run the first 200 meters as hard as I can. Then, for the second 200 meters, with God’s help, I run harder.”
When Eric graduated from the University he was unexpectedly asked to give a speech. He shared the following:
Over the gate at the University of Pennsylvania there is a motto, which reads, ‘In the dust of defeat as well as in the laurels of victory there is a glory to be found if one has done his best.’ There are many men and women who have done their best, but who have not succeeded in gaining the laurels of victory. To them, as much honor is due as to those who have received these laurels (Caughey p. 100).
In the midst of adulation, he remained the modest and unassuming champion.
(continue to part 2)
[i] Glimpses # 161. Christian History Institute, March 2007.
[ii] In the movie, Chariots of Fire, it is the American sprinter, Jackson Scholz, who gives Eric the Scripture verse. Located later by a reporter, Scholz denied that he would ever have done this, noting that his religious faith was rather “informal.”
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