Many people dream of winning a competition; few give up a victory for the sake of a principle. Eric Liddell did exactly that, and the gesture kept him remembered nearly a century later, far beyond sporting circles.
Born in Tianjin, China, in 1902, the son of Scottish missionaries, Eric grew up between two worlds: his family’s Protestant discipline and the Chinese culture around him. At six he was sent to England to study, where he showed rare athletic talent.
At the University of Edinburgh he became a national-class sprinter and a player for the Scottish rugby team. At the 1924 Paris Olympics, he refused to run the 100 metres, his specialty, because the heat fell on a Sunday, the day he set apart for God.
He switched events, ran the 400 metres, a distance in which he was not favored, and won with an Olympic and world record. The scene would, decades later, become the heart of the film Chariots of Fire. At the time, though, not everyone applauded: part of the press and the British Olympic committee publicly criticized him for, in their view, placing his faith above his country in events where he could have earned more medals.
In 1925, at the height of his fame, he returned to China as a teacher and missionary, teaching science, chemistry and physical education at the Anglo-Chinese College in Tianjin. He married Canadian missionary Florence Mackenzie and had three daughters.
With the Japanese invasion, he left the safety of the city to serve at a poor rural mission station alongside his brother, a doctor. In 1941, as the risk of war grew, he sent Florence, pregnant with their third daughter, and the two older girls to Canada, choosing to remain alone in China. He never met Maureen, the youngest, who was born far from her father.
In 1943 he was interned alone at the Weihsien camp. There he became the children’s “Uncle Eric,” teaching Bible and science, organizing games and sharing the little he had, in an environment of hunger and tension that wore down even the most resilient.
He died in 1945 of an undiagnosed brain tumor, worsened by overwork and malnutrition, five months before the camp’s liberation. His life teaches that the firmest faith is not the one that displays strength, but the one that knows what is worth losing, even when the price is one’s own family.
