http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jan/04/50-stunning-olympic-moments-eric-liddell?newsfeed=true
50 stunning Olympic moments: No8 Eric Liddell’s 400 metres win, 1924
A true amateur, the Scot never intended to fill more than a few years in athletics before he was ready to become a missionary. Click here for a gallery of his achievement
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Eric Liddell is carried round the streets after his Olympic victory in the 400m in 1924. Photograph: Topical Press Agency/Getty Images
Little could better emphasise the extent to which the Olympics has changed since its inception than the story of Eric Liddell, 1924 gold medallist and inspiration for the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire. A true amateur, he never intended sport to fill more than a few years of his youth before he was ready to become a missionary.
He ran his first race for his Edinburgh athletics club in 1921. He made his first appearance outside Scotland in 1923. He ran his final competitive race in 1925. In those four years he completed a degree in pure science, became a religious speaker of national renown, won two Olympic medals and seven caps for his country at rugby union, where he became a first-choice wing three-quarter before forsaking the sport in 1923 to concentrate on athletics.
His sporting success was achieved despite a running style that even Paula Radcliffe would consider ungainly. “He is remembered among lovers of athletics as probably the ugliest runner who ever won an Olympic championship,” wrote the Guardian when reporting his death in 1945. “When he appeared in the heats of the 400m at Paris in 1924 his huge sprawling stride, his head thrown back and his arms clawing the air, moved the Americans and other sophisticated experts to ribald laughter.”
But Harold Abrahams, who in 1924 won the 100m gold medal – the event Liddell famously refused to compete in because the preliminary heats were held on a Sunday – surmised: “People may shout their heads off about his appalling style. Well, let them. He gets there.”
In Stoke on Trent in July 1923, in a race run over a quarter of a mile, England saw just how true this was. At the first bend he tripped over the legs of the English runner JJ Gillies, falling off the track. By the time he was back on his feet the last of the other runners was 30 yards away and moving fast but Liddell attacked them with such pace that he finally overtook Gillies three yards from the line to win before collapsing, spent, to the ground. “The circumstances in which Liddell won the event made it a performance bordering on the miraculous,” wrote The Scotsman. “Veterans, whose memories take them back 35 years, and in some cases even longer, in the history of athletics, were unanimous in the opinion that Liddell’s win in the quarter-mile was the greatest ever track performance that they had ever seen.”
But, as the Guardian was to report, “Liddell has already decided that the race he has chiefly to run in the world is not on the cinder track”. And so it was that on 6 July 1924, while Abrahams was easing through the first two rounds of the Olympic 100m, Liddell was delivering the weekly sermon at the Scots Church on Rue Bayard. This was his destiny; his father, James, was a missionary in China; his brother, his sister and his wife were all missionaries. Within a year he would be ready to join them.
His decision to avoid the 100m (and, though it is much more frequently forgotten, the 4x400m relay, in which Britain came only third without his assistance – with Liddell in the team they beat the gold-medal-winning Americans a week later) was criticised in the press and even in parliament but his decision was absolute. “I object to Sunday sport in toto,” he said.
So Liddell’s second appearance at the Olympic Stadium in Colombes (he made his international rugby debut there) came on the Tuesday, when he eased through the first two rounds of the 200m. The following day he progressed through the semi-final and came third in the final, some way behind the Americans Jackson Scholz and Charles Paddock. Abrahams finished sixth, having also competed that day in the long jump. “The effort,” wrote the Guardian, “was more than he could stand.”
Abrahams’ fatigue was understandable. Paris was struck in the summer of 1924 by a crippling heatwave, with temperatures regularly exceeding 40°C. Obviously this most affected the long-distance events – just 15 of the 39 starters in the 10,000m cross-country completed the race and four ambulances were required to collect the 12 unconscious athletes whose bodies littered the route. The Frenchman Marschal, one of the few to reach the stadium itself for the final lap, collapsed with 50 yards to go. “He made a tremendous effort to regain his feet,” reported the Guardian, “actually sprinting a dozen yards, when his arms went up, his body spun like a top and he fell unconscious.”
These conditions did not help Liddell’s tactics for the 400m, which he summed up thus: “I run the first 200m as hard as I can. Then, for the second 200m, with God’s help, I run harder.” He had trained seriously for the distance only after discovering in January – not, as suggested in Chariots of Fire, while already on his way to Paris – the scheduling issue with the shortest sprint event and, despite that heroic performance in Stoke, he was not widely considered a serious challenger.
He eased through his heat on 10 July and safely negotiated the following day’s semi-final (which was preceded, for some reason, by the performance of a Scottish air by the pipers of the Cameron Highlanders), but the draw for the final a few hours later represented another blow: he was given the outside lane. Unable to see his rivals, he was left with little option but simply to peg it as fast as he could for as long as he could.
Liddell started well and covered the first 200m in 22.2sec. Just inside him in lane five was Horatio Fitch, who had broken the world record in the semi-final and was America’s gold-medal hope. “I couldn’t believe a man could set such a pace and finish,” he said. “But Liddell pushed himself like a man possessed. He didn’t weaken. With the tape only 20 yards away I again spurted closer but Liddell threw his head farther back, gathered himself together and shot forward.”
Fitch was to come second, 0.8sec behind the Flying Scotsman. Britain’s Guy Butler finished third, before saying: “He seemed to us, his opponents, to be tackling the whole distance in an all-out sprint.”
“There was a gasp of astonishment when Liddell was seen to be a clear three yards ahead of the field at the half distance,” reported the Press Association. “Nearer the tape Fitch and Butler strained every nerve and muscle to overtake him but could make absolutely no impression on the inspired Scot. With head thrown back and chin thrust out in his usual style he flashed past the tape to win what was probably so far the greatest victory of the meeting. Certainly there has not been a more popular win. The crowd went into a frenzy of enthusiasm.”
The Scotsman sprinted through the tape six yards clear of his nearest rival, and his time of 47.6sec was the day’s second world record at the distance.
Liddell returned to Britain a hero and one of his first duties was to attend his graduation ceremony at Edinburgh University. He was crowned by a laurel wreath by the principal, Sir Alfred Ewing. “Mr Liddell,” said Ewing, “you have shown that none could pass you except the examiners.”