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Eric Henry Liddell (/ˈlɪdəl/; 16 January 1902 – 21 February 1945) was a Scottish sprinter, rugby participant and Christian missionary. Born in Qing China to Scottish missionary dad and mom, he attended boarding faculty near London, spending time when possible along with his family in Edinburgh, and afterwards attended the College of Edinburgh. On the 1924 Summer season Olympics in Paris, Liddell refused to run within the heats for his favoured a hundred metres as a result of they had been held on a Sunday. As an alternative he competed within the 400 metres held on a weekday, a race that he won. He returned to China in 1925 to function a missionary instructor. Liddell’s Olympic coaching and racing, and the religious convictions that influenced him, are depicted in the Oscar-winning 1981 movie Chariots of Hearth, during which he’s portrayed by fellow Scot and University of Edinburgh alumnus Ian Charleson. Liddell was born sixteen January 1902, in Tientsin, China, the second son of the Reverend and Mrs. James Dunlop Liddell, Scottish missionaries with the London Missionary Society. Liddell went to high school in China till the age of 5. On the age of six, he and his eight-year-old brother Robert have been enrolled in Eltham School, a boarding college in south London for the sons of missionaries. Their dad and mom and sister Jenny returned to China. In the course of the boys’ time at Eltham, their parents, sister, and new brother Ernest got here dwelling on furlough two or three times and have been capable of be collectively as a household, mainly living in Edinburgh. At Eltham, Liddell was an impressive athlete, earning the Blackheath Cup as the perfect athlete of his 12 months, and taking part in for the first XI and the first XV by the age of 15, later turning into captain of each the cricket and rugby union groups. While at the College of Edinburgh, Liddell grew to become well-known for being the quickest runner in Scotland. Newspapers carried stories of his feats at monitor occasions, and plenty of articles said that he was a potential Olympic winner. Liddell was chosen to speak for Glasgow Students’ Evangelistic Union by one of the GSEU’s co-founders, D.P. Thomson, as a result of he was a religious Christian.

On 5 June 1945 the Eric Liddell Memorial Committee was set up in Glasgow, to hunt donations for a fund to supply for the training and upkeep of Eric Liddell’s three daughters; to fund an Eric Liddell Missionary Scholarship on the University of Edinburgh and an Eric Liddell Problem Trophy for Newbie Athletics; and to erect a memorial in North China to commemorate Eric Liddell’s work there. Only the primary and third goals were achieved. To raise funds and to widen its enchantment, the committee revealed a pamphlet by D.P. Thomson: Eric Liddell, The Making of an Athlete and the Coaching of a Missionary. The Fund was ultimately wound up in 1954, having raised £3,687 15s – over £88,000 in relative buying energy. In 2008, simply before the Beijing Olympics, Chinese language authorities claimed that Liddell had refused an opportunity to depart the camp, and as a substitute gave his place to a pregnant lady. Apparently, the Japanese and British, with Churchill’s approval, had agreed upon a prisoner change. However, his friends and those who had lived with him in the camp disputed the declare. When Scotsman Allan Wells received the 100-metre dash on the 1980 Moscow Olympics, fifty six years after the 1924 Paris Olympics, he was requested if he had run the race for Harold Abrahams, the last 100-metre Olympic winner from Britain (who had died two years previously). Wells replied. “I would like to dedicate this to Eric Liddell”. In 2002, when the primary inductees had been inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame, Eric Liddell topped the general public vote for the preferred sporting hero Scotland had ever produced. Liddell was inducted into the Scottish Rugby Hall of Fame in January 2022, on the centenary of his first international cap. Liddell was buried within the backyard behind the Japanese officers’ quarters, his grave marked by a small picket cross. Shandong Province, north-east China, about six hours’ drive from Beijing. Its rediscovery was largely the results of the willpower of Charles Walker, a civil engineer working in Hong Kong, who felt that certainly one of Scotland’s nice heroes was in hazard of being forgotten.

Inspired by the Biblical message, and deprived of a view of the other runners as a result of he drew the outside lane, Liddell raced the whole of the first 200 metres to be nicely clear of the favoured People. With little possibility but to treat the race as an entire sprint, he continued to race round the ultimate bend. He was challenged all the way down the home straight but held on to take the win. He broke the Olympic and world records with a time of 47.6 seconds. It was controversially ratified as a world document, despite being 0.2 seconds slower than the file for the better distance of 440 yards. Just a few days earlier Liddell had competed in the 200-metre finals, for which he acquired the bronze medal behind Americans Jackson Scholz and Charles Paddock, beating British rival and teammate Harold Abrahams, who finished in sixth place. This was the second and final race wherein these two runners met. After the Olympics and graduation from the University of Edinburgh, Liddell continued to compete. His refusal to compete on Sunday meant he had additionally missed the Olympic 4×400-metre relay, in which Britain completed third. Shortly after the Games, his closing leg within the 4×400-metre race in a British Empire vs. USA contest, helped secure the victory over the gold medal-successful Individuals. A 12 months later, in 1925, at the Scottish Novice Athletics Affiliation (SAAA) assembly in Hampden Park in Glasgow, he equalled his Scottish championship document of 10.0 seconds within the 100-yard race, received the 220-yard contest in 22.2 seconds, received the 440-yard contest in 47.7, and participated in a successful relay team. He was only the fourth athlete to have received all three sprints on the SAAA, reaching this feat in 1924 and 1925. These were his remaining races on British soil. Due to his beginning and loss of life in China, some of that nation’s Olympic literature lists Liddell as China’s first Olympic champion. Zaoqiang County, Hengshui, Hebei province, an especially poor area that had suffered through the country’s civil wars and had become a very treacherous battleground with the invading Japanese.

In reality, the schedule and Liddell’s decision were each known a number of months prematurely, though his refusal to participate stays significant. Liddell had additionally been chosen to run as a member of the 4×100-metre and 4×400-metre relay teams on the Olympics, however he additionally declined these spots as the finals were to be run on a Sunday. One scene within the movie depicts Liddell falling early in a 440-yard race in a Scotland-France twin meet and making up a 20-yard deficit to win; the precise race was during a Triangular Contest meet between Scotland, England and Eire at Stoke-on-Trent in England in July 1923. Liddell was knocked to the ground a number of strides into the race. He hesitated, bought up and pursued his opponents, 20 yards forward. He caught the leaders shortly earlier than the finish line and collapsed after crossing the tape. This scene was filmed at Goldenacre stadium in Edinburgh, the enjoying fields of George Heriot’s Faculty in Edinburgh. Liddell’s unorthodox working model as portrayed in the movie, with his head again and his mouth vast open, is also mentioned to be correct. At an athletics championship in Glasgow, a customer watching the 440-yard closing, Room Stunning wherein Liddell was a long way behind the leaders at the start of the final lap (of a 220-yard track), remarked to a Glasgow native that Liddell would be exhausting put to win the race. The Glaswegian merely replied, “His head’s no’ back but.” Liddell then threw his head back and, with mouth extensive open, caught and passed his opponents to win the race. John W Keddie, “Working the Race – Eric Liddell, Olympic Champion and Missionary” e-book. Caughey, Ellen (2000). Eric Liddell: Olympian and Missionary. Ulrichsville, OH: Barbour Pub. Oliver, David (2 January 2022). “Eric Liddell enters Scottish Rugby Hall of Fame after ‘different’ sporting profession before Chariots of Fire recognised”. Lovesey, Peter (1979). The Official Centenary History of the Newbie Athletic Association. Enfield, Nice Britain: Guinness Superlatives Ltd. Hamilton, Duncan (2016). For the glory. Simon Burnton (4 January 2012). “50 gorgeous Olympic moments No8: Eric Liddell’s 400 metres win, 1924”. The Guardian. Paris, FR. 1924. p. Watman, Mel (2006). All-Time Greats of British Athletics.

He joined his brother, Rob, who was a physician there. The station was severely short of help and the missionaries there have been exhausted. A continuing stream of locals came at all hours for medical therapy. Liddell arrived at the station in time to relieve his brother, who was ailing and needing to go on furlough. Liddell suffered many hardships himself at the mission. Xiaozhang, the Japanese took over the mission station and Liddell returned to Tianjin. In 1943, he was interned on the Weihsien Internment Camp (in the fashionable metropolis of Weifang) with the members of the China Inland Mission, Chefoo Faculty (in the town now referred to as Yantai), and plenty of others. Liddell turned a frontrunner and organiser on the camp, however meals, drugs, and different provides had been scarce. There have been many cliques in the camp and when some rich businessmen managed to smuggle in some eggs, Liddell shamed them into sharing them. While fellow missionaries formed cliques, moralised, and acted selfishly, Liddell busied himself by helping the elderly, educating Bible classes at the camp faculty, arranging games, and educating science to the kids, who referred to him as Uncle Eric. It was additionally claimed that one Sunday Liddell refereed a hockey match to cease fighting amongst the gamers, as he was trusted to not take sides. Cliff described Liddell as “the finest Christian gentleman it has been my pleasure to meet. In on a regular basis in the camp, I by no means heard him say a foul word about anyone”. In his final letter to his spouse, written on the day he died, Liddell wrote of suffering a nervous breakdown as a consequence of overwork. He had an undiagnosed mind tumor; overwork and malnourishment may have hastened his demise. Liddell died on 21 February 1945, five months earlier than liberation. In keeping with a fellow missionary, Liddell’s final phrases had been, “It’s full surrender”, in reference to how he had given his life to God. In accordance with a different source, the 2007 documentary movie Eric Liddell: Champion of Conviction, Liddell had been in and out of the camp hospital because of the mind tumor. One in all his college students, Joyce Stranks, came to visit him within the hospital to discuss a book he had written about surrender to God’s will.