Eric Liddell won gold at the 1924 Paris Olympics. His was a life of inspiration to draw upon. The backstory of the man featured in Chariots of Fire offers a vision of there being a higher duty than one’s own personal success and national glory

Tim Costello

As I arrange my timetable for the next two weeks to allow plenty of space to cheer on our Olympians in Paris I feel a strong sense of nostalgia. It is 100 years ago that the Flying Scotsman, Eric Liddell, born in China to missionary parents, won gold in the 400m sprint at the 1924 Paris Olympics. That was obviously well before my time, but the nostalgia stems from the lasting impact on me of the brilliant 1981 film Chariots of Fire that recounted Liddell’s story.

The backstory of this man provides a curious challenge for a secular age that prizes success and competition and winning above all else.

Liddell was a student at Edinburgh University and the fastest sprinter in the UK and went to Paris as Britain’s great hope for gold in the 100m. But he discovered as the British Olympic team left for Paris that the 100m heats were to be held on a Sunday. As a committed Christian he believed that one of the Ten Commandments about honouring the Sabbath meant no competitive sport on Sunday and he provoked a team crisis by refusing to run. How could he let himself and his country down over such a pedantic rule? Surely his first duty was to his nation.

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This sort of religion sounds ridiculous to most ears and incomprehensibly heavy on duty to God. But I grew up in a family and church that believed there should be no Sunday sport and I still remember feeling great guilt when for the first time in the late 80s I sneaked off on a Sunday to watch my Essendon Bombers play at the MCG. I strongly identified with Eric’s dilemma.

When Chariots of Fire came out, I was surprised and buoyed by its lionising of Liddell’s sense of duty to God above all else. I saw the film when visiting Oxford in 1981 and remember the whole cinema erupting into booing. That was because Eric’s competitor Harold Abrahams scorned his Scottish counterpart for not being from the finest university in the country (Cambridge). Otherwise, the cinema crowd was reverently silent, moved and engrossed by Eric’s sense of duty. The audience didn’t miss the irony of the Prince of Wales being brought in to convince Eric to put country before God and to stop being ridiculous and run. This was the same Prince of Wales who, as King Edward 8th, later abdicated and in the eyes of many of his subjects failed his duty to them and the nation.

The plot had a remarkable twist. Eric stayed true to his perceived duty and pulled out of the heats. But then at the last moment his Olympic team entered him in the 400m, not his event nor one for which he had trained. He claimed gold in a world record time of 47.6 seconds. He had fulfilled the duty he felt to a higher calling, willing to sacrifice his specialist event with all his training, but remarkably managed to win anyway. His fierce sprinting British competitor Abrahams ran and did win the 100m for Britain. The team were triumphant.

It’s a true story and a feelgood story that offers a vision of there being a higher duty than one’s own personal success and national glory. It was a strange idea to valorize in a 1981 film and would be even stranger in today’s age of self-promotion, nationalism and narcissism.

My nostalgia is in large part related to those values of having a sense of duty.

I think of Eric Liddell who went to China after Olympic glory to teach and serve the poor. My wife’s Aunt by marriage was from Scotland and knew Eric Liddell both in Scotland and as a fellow missionary in China. She lived to 100 and often talked to me about how Eric was such a selfless, giving man. He died in 1945 at the age of 43 in a Japanese concentration camp in China where he and so many expatriates were imprisoned. And he kept on doing his duty. He organised competitive sport (even on a Sunday) as recreation for the inmates. When he was asked why he did that he answered that he was doing his duty because God knew these vulnerable kids in the camp needed it and Sunday was their only day free from work. He showed he was not a legalist.

On 15 July this year Edinburgh University awarded Eric Liddell a posthumous doctorate received by his daughter, who must have been a very good age herself. It cited that “Liddell’s story remains a beacon of inspiration, reminding us of the enduring power of faith, courage and commitment to others.” His was a life of inspiration. I will draw upon that inspiration again as I enter the Olympic spirit watching our great national champions this year in Paris.

Tim Costello is a senior fellow at the Centre for Public Christianity