The Race He Would Not Run

It was a July day in Paris, in 1924. Six men lined up for the final of the 400 metres at the Olympic Games. One of them, a Scot named Eric Liddell, was not really a 400-metre runner at all. He was a sprinter, and the race he had trained for, the 100 metres, had already been run without him.

He had given it up on purpose. The reason was simple. Some of its races were on a Sunday.

A boy from China

Eric Liddell was born in 1902 in Tianjin, in northern China, where his Scottish parents worked as Christian missionaries. When he was five, he and his older brother, Rob, were sent to a boarding school in London for the sons of missionaries. They did not see their parents again for years at a time.

Eric was shy and gentle, but on the sports field he came alive. He was fast, astonishingly fast. At the University of Edinburgh, where he studied science, he became one of the best sprinters in Britain. He also played rugby on the wing for Scotland.

He had an odd way of running. His head went back, his arms flailed and his chin pointed at the sky. People laughed at his style. Then they watched him win.

In 1923 he ran 100 yards in 9.7 seconds, a British record that stood for many years. Everyone expected him to be Britain's great hope in the 100 metres at the Paris Olympics the following summer.

The timetable

Then the timetable for the Games came out. The heats of the 100 metres were to be run on a Sunday.

For Eric, Sunday was a day of rest and worship, set apart for God. He had been raised that way and he believed it deeply. He would not run.

The decision became known long before the Games. Some newspapers and officials were angry, and a few critics said he was letting his country down. He did not argue, or make speeches about it. He simply said he would not race on that day, and he did not change his mind.

Instead, he and his coach looked at the programme again. He could run the 200 metres, and the 400 metres, neither of which had races on a Sunday. The 400 metres was a very different race, needing stamina as well as speed. He had months to learn it.

Paris

On the Sunday of the 100-metre heats, Eric Liddell was not at the stadium. He went to church. The 100 metres was won by his British teammate Harold Abrahams.

A few days later, Eric won a bronze medal in the 200 metres. It was a fine result, but the 400 metres was still to come, and few expected him to win it. The Americans had strong runners, and Eric was still a newcomer at that distance.

Before the final, someone from the British team pressed a small piece of paper into his hand. On it was a line from the Bible, from the first book of Samuel: "Them that honour me I will honour." Eric was moved, and he carried the note with him to the start.

When the gun fired, he set off at what looked like a reckless pace, as if it were a sprint. Spectators expected him to fade on the final bend. He did not. Head back, arms working, he held on all the way, and crossed the line well clear of the others.

His time, 47.6 seconds, was a new world record. The newspapers that had criticised him now hailed him as a hero.

Back to China

Eric Liddell could have stayed in Britain as a famous athlete. Instead, the year after the Olympics, he went back to China to teach at a college in Tianjin, as his parents had served before him. He taught science, ran sports for the students, and worked in the church.

In 1934 he married Florence Mackenzie, the daughter of Canadian missionaries, and they had two daughters. China by then was a dangerous place, torn by war with Japan. In 1941, as the danger grew, Florence and the girls left for Canada, where their third daughter was born. Eric stayed behind to carry on his work. He never met his youngest child.

The camp

In 1943, Eric and many other foreigners in the area were taken by the Japanese army to a prison camp at Weixian. Around 1,800 people were crowded inside, with little food and poor shelter.

Those who were there remembered him for years afterwards. He taught science to the children, using whatever he could find. He organised games and races to give the young people something to look forward to. He looked after the old and the sick, and carried water and coal for others. People said he never seemed to have a bad word for anyone.

The children called him Uncle Eric. Many of them later said he was the kindest person they had ever known.

In early 1945, he became very ill. He died in the camp in February of that year, of a brain tumour, at the age of forty-three. The camp was set free only a few months later.

The story lives on

In 1981 a film, Chariots of Fire, told the story of the Paris Olympics, and the world remembered the runner who would not race on a Sunday. Some of the film's details were changed for drama, but the heart of it was true.

Eric Liddell is remembered in Scotland and in China, where a memorial stands at the site of the old camp. People remember him for his gold medal. But those who knew him best remembered him more for his gentleness, and for the quiet way he kept to what he believed.

Want to read more?

Sally Magnusson's The Flying Scotsman and Duncan Hamilton's For the Glory both tell Eric Liddell's life in full, including his years in China and in the camp. His Olympic results are on Olympics.com.