“To play the game is the only thing in life that matters” proclaimed the handbook given to British athletes competing in the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris. The country’s two top gold-medal hopefuls, however, thought otherwise.
Faith mattered most to sprinter Eric Lidell, a devout Christian who ran to glorify God, not country. Success on the track provided him with a pulpit to evangelize about his religion. To Liddell’s fiercely competitive teammate Harold Abrahams, who ran to overcome anti-Semitism and outdo his brothers, winning was paramount. The real-life story of the two Olympic champions propelled by a higher purpose inspired the 1981 Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire.
Liddell Refuses to Run on the Sabbath
Born in China to Scottish missionaries, Liddell attended British prep schools and spent years without seeing his parents. The shy, pious student excelled on the track despite his unorthodox running style. With his arms flailing madly and knees pumping high, the “Flying Scotsman” opened his mouth wide and threw his head back toward the heavens when approaching the finishing line.
Considered Great Britain’s best hope of winning the 100 meters at the 1924 Paris Olympics, the 22-year-old University of Edinburgh student refused to compete in his best event when he learned in the fall of 1923 that the heats were scheduled for a Sunday afternoon. He also relinquished spots on the 4x100-meter and 4x400-meter relays, which were scheduled for the second Sunday of the Games.
Adhering to his religious convictions, Liddell ignored those who called him a traitor to his country and rejected pleas to reconsider. When a British Olympic Committee member suggested that the French Sabbath ended at noon, leaving him free to compete, Liddell replied, “Mine lasts all day.” As 1924 dawned, Liddell started to train for the 200-meter and 400-meter races, which weren’t his specialty.
Abrahams Sprints for Gold
Religion also played a role in propelling Abrahams around the track. As a student at Repton, the son of a Jewish immigrant father was turned away from a boardinghouse and barred from reading lessons during school assemblies because of his faith.
Mark Ryan, author of Chariots Return: Saving the Soul of the Games, says Abrahams didn’t experience widespread discrimination until prep school. “It was the anti-Semitism at Repton that really upset and challenged Harold. That was where anti-Semitism inspired him to be the best athlete he could possibly be—to show them.”
Ryan says sibling rivalry also fueled the sprinter’s obsessive drive for Olympic gold as he sought to surpass the exploits of his older brothers, one of whom was an Olympic long jumper, the other the doctor in charge of the British Olympic team.
Disappointed by his performance at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Abrahams trained maniacally while serving as captain of the athletics team at Cambridge University. At Liddell’s behest, he took the unusual move of hiring a professional coach, Sam Mussabini, to dissect his form and improve his starts and finishes.
With Liddell’s absence, the “Cambridge Cannonball” became the best British chance for gold in the 100-meter race in Paris against the formidable Americans, who had won the Olympics’ signature event all but one time. After setting an Olympic record time of 10.6 seconds in both the quarterfinal and semifinal, Abrahams lined up for the final along with four Americans, including reigning Olympic champion Charley Paddock.
The noise inside Stade Colombes melted away as the runners knelt and dug their back feet into the red-cinder track. The pistol cracked. Six second elapsed, and Abrahams was neck-and-neck with Paddock. Inching ahead with every stride, Abrahams thrust his chest forward and arms back and broke the tape two feet clear of the field, equaling his Olympic record.
With the British media spotlight focused on Abrahams, Liddell entered the 200-meter final with low expectations. While Abrahams finished last, Liddell surprisingly won the bronze medal. A bigger shock came two days later.
Liddell Stuns Paris in the 400 Meters
Although Liddell had only run the 400 meters competitively a handful of times, he won his semifinal heat, but well behind the world record time of American Horatio Fitch. Despite drawing the outside lane, considered the worst placement for the final, Liddell toed the starting line inspired by a note he received from a British masseur that contained the Scripture passage “Him that honors me, I will honor.”
As Abrahams watched in the stands, Liddell had a perfect start and blistered the first half of the race in 22.2 seconds, leading his nearest competitor by three meters. Abrahams worried about the fast pace. “He must crack before the end,” he thought. Liddell wondered, “Can I last home?”
Incredibly, not only did Liddell refuse to fade, he actually pulled away. “In the most important race of his life, he was suddenly near-perfect technically,” Ryan says. “Liddell’s usual erratic, flailing arm action miraculously became technically sound for the 400-meter final. As if by divine intervention, Eric was able to use his arms like piston engines as a source of power when it really mattered in that outside lane.” Liddell won gold with a new world record of 47.6 seconds, beating the silver medalist by five meters.
'Chariots of Fire' Resurrects Memories of 1924 Olympics
Abrahams returned from Paris with his personal gold and a silver medal as part of Great Britain’s 4x100 meter relay team. The year after his Olympic triumph, however, a broken leg suffered in a long jump forced his premature retirement. Forever tied to the Olympics, Abrahams captained the British team in the 1928 Summer Games and covered the Olympics as a journalist, author and broadcaster for 40 years.
Liddell’s athletic career waned as he joined the family business in 1925 as a missionary in Tianjin, China. He only returned to Scotland twice, becoming an ordained minister on his 1932 visit. After Japan attacked China in 1937, Tianjin fell to the Japanese after three days of bombing. As World War II turned increasingly brutal, Liddell’s pregnant wife and two girls departed for the safety of Canada. The Olympian never saw his family again. In March 1943, Liddell was confined to a Japanese-run internment camp, where the 43-year-old died of an inoperable brain tumor in 1945.
Memories of the Olympic feats of Abrahams and Liddell faded from memory until they were resurrected in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, winner of four Oscars including the Academy Award for Best Picture. With its iconic soundtrack accompanying the scene of British Olympians running barefoot in the surf, the low-budget movie remains one of the most acclaimed sports films of all-time.
The film cemented history’s link between Abrahams and Liddell. Ryan says that the Olympians weren’t close friends but spoke glowingly of each other.
“Both men had huge respect for the achievements of the other,” he says. “The funniest thing about the dynamic between Harold and Eric is that they had identical views of the other’s running. Both thought the other man was technically terrible—but unbeatable for fighting spirit on the track.”
