And it's the 101st anniversary of his world record
On this day 101 years ago Eric Liddell broke the world record in the 400m.
Liddell said:
It has been a wonderful experience to compete in the Olympic Games and to bring home a gold medal. But since I have been a young lad, I have had my eyes on a different prize. You see, each one of us is in a greater race than any I have run in Paris, and this race ends when God gives out the medals.
On this day one year ago I performed my one-man play about him at Morningside United Church in Edinburgh, Scotland, where Liddell taught Sunday school and preached.
I performed the full play before and after lunch, and during lunch I performed an excerpt at the Eric Liddell Community, across the street.
After my performance I told them I’d interrupt their meal again at the top of the hour. A few seconds before that, I announced: “One hundred years ago, Eric Liddell started the 400m at the Paris Olympics… NOW!”
Then, 47.6 seconds later (more or less) I hollered, “He broke the world record!!!”
I recently posted a short film about Liddell leaving Scotland — and all that his world record could have brought him — to serve the people of China. After the film I mentioned a program by the C.S. Lewis Institute that I had recently seen: From Gold Medalist to God's Missionary. It has interviews with Bob Rendall, the first CEO of the Eric Liddell Centre (now the Eric Liddell Community), Patricia Liddell Russell, Liddell's eldest daughter and only living relative who remembers him, John MacMillan, the current CEO of the Eric Liddell Community, and John Hoyt, who was in the internment camp with Liddell.
I had seen those interviews when I posted the film, but at that point I hadn’t seen the interview with Duncan Hamilton, which is separate from the other interviews. You'll need to scroll down the page to see it. He's written the newest biography about Eric Liddell, and he pointed out it's likely the final biography about him that will be based on interviews with people who remember him. One of the things Hamilton mentioned that I hadn't remembered is that Liddell turned down a coaching job at Cambridge University to serve the people of China.
