THE OLYMPIAN MISSIONARY | KAIROS GLOBAL | JULY 2022

Author: Joseph Antony

Intro: Sports commentator A Joseph Antony writes about Eric Liddell, the British Olympic gold medallist, who gave up earthly glory for a life with Christ.

Eric Henry Liddell was born to London Mission Society evangelists Rev James Dunlop Liddell and Mary Jane Smith Liddell in modern-day Tianjin, North China in 1902. At Eltham College, Blackheath, a school for sons of missionaries, Eric and his older brother Robert were influenced perhaps by a slogan at the foot of a glass painting: ‘Scholars and Sportsmen – Servants of God.’

The brothers joined Edinburgh University in 1920 where their athletic prowess bloomed. With his scorching pace Eric became a wing three quarter in the Scottish international rugby team in 1922 and 23. He was persuaded to give up the highly physical, injury-prone, blood and mud game to focus on running with the 1924 Paris Olympics just a year away.

‘I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast and when I run I feel his pleasure,’ he would famously say in later years. Many of his memorable quotes attributed his success to God or diverted the spotlight towards him. 

 Under the tutelage of Tommy McKercher, who trained the Edinburgh University athletics team, he practised at Powder Hall, where even greyhound races were held. Despite an unorthodox, if not awkward running style, the Triple Crown in the 100, 220 and 440 yards invariably went to Liddell, in events all across Scotland.

 Keen to serve God but not knowing how, he was ready to place his athletic abilities at God’s disposal. At Gallowshields, Loudon Hamilton’s group, which had no name then, made a deep impression on Eric. It stressed on a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, talking to Him like a friend, intense Bible study and the four absolutes – purity, unselfishness, honesty and love.

 In later years, this committed set became a part of the Oxford Group movement, which in the second half of the 20th century would be known as Moral Re-Armament (MRA). Another practise Eric picked up from these formative years and continued throughout his life was Quiet Time, a morning session set aside especially to read a portion of the Bible, talk to the Lord, and be silent to listen to him.

 DP Thomson, a Glasgow University student evangelist, who held meetings on holidays and during weekends, once invited Liddell to speak to coal miners, not very interested in Christianity. Although he accepted, the well-known athlete was quite uncomfortable about public speaking. The morning after he consented, he received a letter from his sister Jenny, which had the following Biblical verse: ‘Fear not for I am with you; do not be dismayed for I will guide you.’

 A journalist reported the event, referring to Liddell’s Christian leanings. Soon even people not interested in religion would attend his talks, curious to know what a sports hero had to say. Even if his public speaking skills weren’t exceptional, people saw he was sincere and enjoyed his sense of humour.

 Meanwhile on the athletic track, he had built up a reputation as the fastest man in the world, the short sprints being his strong point. Well before the 1924 Paris Games, he got to know that the heats for the 100 metres would be run on a Sunday. ‘I am sorry I cannot compete because the Christian Sabbath is the Lord’s Day and I can’t run on that day,’ the deeply devout Liddell declared.

 With Scotland never having won an Olympic medal, the pressure mounted on him from various quarters to relent and compete in the 100 metres, (in which he was hot favourite), was immense. He drew a lot of flak from some in the British camp too, who could not understand his placing God above winning a medal for the King.

 Liddell refused to part with his principles and would not budge. A compromise was worked out whereby he would run in the 200 and 400 metres, where prospects for a medal in either were bleak. While the 100 m heats on Sunday were on, he was preaching at the Scots Church on Rue Bayard in Paris.

 Apart from giving up his spot in the 100 metres, Eric withdrew from two more races—the 4 x 100 m and 4 x 400 m, where Great Britain’s hopes for striking gold were especially high. These two relays were also scheduled on a Sunday, prompting his exit from them.

 With no international experience whatsoever in the quarter mile, the odds were stacked heavily against Eric, not least among these being the over 40 degrees Celsius heat wave that scorched the French capital. In the heats, he ran the first and second rounds within a few hours of each other. Just four hours separated the semis from the finals. Never before had he run four back-to-back races in the 400 metres. Yet, with each race, his timing improved.

 Earlier in the day, when Liddell was leaving the hotel for the stadium, the British contingent’s masseur handed him a note, which the runner said he would read at the venue. He that honours me, I will honour – a line from 1 Samuel 2:30, must have inspired the sprinter for what lay ahead.

 About the 400 metre final, he had an interesting reply to a journalist’s query about his strategy for the race. ‘The secret of my success over the 400 m is that I run the first 200 m as fast as I can. Then, for the second 200 m, with God’s help I run faster,’ said Liddell. Before the starting gun, he shook hands with all his competitors, including Jackson Scholz and other formidable American sprinters.

 Being assigned the outermost lane was not just a distinct disadvantage, but the extended curve in the track rendered his run even more difficult. The Flying Scotsman, as his biography by Sally Magnusson was titled, not only won the race with a whopping six-yard lead but established a new record, clocking 47.6 seconds. He had also won the 200 m bronze.

 Just 22 when he had the world at his feet, Liddell gave up aspirations for further glory in the Olympics and sports. Instead he chose to follow in the footsteps of his parents as missionaries to China. ‘Christ for the world, for the world needs Christ,’ he said when boarding the train at Waverley station as his journey to the east began.

 As a chemistry teacher and overseer of sports at Tianjin, Liddell was loved by students and faculty alike. In 1934, he married Florence Mackenzie and they had two daughters – Patricia and Heather. Three years later, he gave up teaching, moving to Siaochang to be a rural preacher. Japan invaded China in the same year. German submarines made sea travel unsafe from 1939.

 On one voyage, the ship the Liddell family was in was hit. That torpedo turned out to be a dud. With the war spreading, the British government urged citizens to leave China in 1941. He sent his wife, expecting their third child and his two daughters away to Canada, while he chose to stay back. Following Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbour and America’s entry into the war, foreigners in China were herded into a prison camp at Weihsien by the Japanese invaders.

 Among these were about 300 kids and teenagers, children of missionaries from the China Inland Mission (boarding) school in Chefoo. Eric had a special bond with them, showing them much sympathy and compassion, because he sorely missed his own family. In overcrowded accommodation, Liddell rose early for his ‘Quiet Time,’ read the Bible with the help of a peanut oil lamp. His preaching stressed on internal change with love the key word. A prison mate described him as the most Christ-like figure in his life.

With no end to the war in sight, he would console frustrated prisoners by saying God had everything in control. Since there were no textbooks in the camp, Eric made one on chemistry from memory, illustrated with diagrams of lab apparatus, reactions on mixing various chemicals etc...!

Sometimes he would carry coal when someone responsible for the job couldn’t, or do whatever else needed to be done.

 When a question arose among the prisoners whether they could love their Japanese prison guards, the answer came from Matthew 5: Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. To love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you were goals to be aimed at. 

 Liddell said prayers were many for those we liked and none for those we didn’t. He challenged his mates to pray for the Japanese, as he would every morning. This incident prompted Stephen Metcalf, a fellow prisoner to go to Japan as a missionary after the war!

 When a fellow prisoner’s shoes had completely worn out in winter, Liddell handed over a packet. When it was opened, they contained his running shoes, which should have meant a lot to the Olympian! Over time Eric began to gradually lose his mental sharpness and his memory. Slowly the limbs that had taken him to such great heights, began to fail him.

 When he was admitted to hospital, no one was sure whether he suffered from exhaustion or a mild nervous breakdown. Doctors suspecting a brain tumour had no x-ray machines to confirm it. Joyce Stranks, with whom he wrote a book, was by his side to discuss the third chapter when the end came. Liddell told her of how we needed to surrender everything to the will of God, do what he wanted not what we wanted. ‘Surren’ was his last word, incomplete because his head fell back.

 The church couldn’t contain the people who attended his funeral, with men who hadn’t shed a tear in over half a century, weeping. One non-Christian went on to say, ‘Jesus Christ lived in our camp and he died yesterday.’

 His grave, located behind the Japanese officers’ quarters, was marked by a simple wooden cross, with his name inscribed with boot polish. Discovered decades later in 1989, the site now has a memorial stone brought from the Isle of Mull and put up by Edinburgh University which bears the words from Isaiah 40:31—They shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary.

 Before the 2008 Beijing Games, there were some who believed Liddell was China’s first Olympic gold medallist. The reasoning was that he was born and died there besides spending much of his life in the country. Over a dozen books have been written about the champion sprinter.

Interest in him saw an upsurge when he was immortalised in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire. 

Sony Sports’ commentator for FIFA World Cup 2018, Euro, Copa America and Tokyo Olympics 2020/21, A Joseph Antony authored My way—The biography of M L Jaisimha (Flipkart, Apple Books, Amazon).