To allow him to attend the Olympics and still graduate on schedule, Eric’s professors had let him hand in assignments ahead of time. This, however, meant a lot of extra work for Eric, not to mention keeping up his training for the games. Finally, all the hard work was behind him, and Eric joined the British Olympic team for the voyage across the English Channel to Paris. On board the boat, many of the other athletes on the team privately told Eric that they admired his stand against running on Sunday. Eric appreciated their support, even if they didn’t express it out loud to the press.
Saturday, July 5, 1924, was a very hot day Paris. It was also the day the Eighth Olympic Games of modern times were officially opened. The Olympic Games had originated in Athens, Greece, in 776 b.c. to honor the twelve gods (especially Zeus, the most powerful of them all) who, according to myth, lived on Mount Olympus. The games were held every four years and consisted of a day of running races and wrestling matches. Eventually, in a.d. 393, they were banned by Roman Emperor Theodoseus. At the end of the nineteenth century, a Frenchman, Baron Pierre de Courbetin, made it his mission to bring back the Olympic Games. This time, every country in the world would be invited to send contestants, and many sports would be played. The idea caught on, and in 1896, the first of the modern Olympic Games was opened in Athens. The games had been held every four years since then, except for 1916, when they were canceled because of World War I.
Over the years, several changes were made to the games. The 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden, were the first to allow women to compete, and the 1924 Paris Olympics were the first to include winter sports. (Of course, the winter events were not held in the sweltering summer heat of Paris. They were held in the French Alps at Chamonix.)
Each country also had its own rules about entering the games. The United States poured a lot of money into helping its contestants. The U.S. government hired an ocean liner, the USS America, to take the U.S. team to the Olympics. The ship had a special 200-meter cork track installed on board so that the athletes could continue their training. Once in Paris, the American team had the best accommodations and plenty of money to pay twice or even three times the going rate for a taxi. Because of this, the other teams often found it difficult to get a taxi to take them to Colombe Stadium where the games were being held. If they weren’t Americans, the taxi drivers didn’t seem interested in taking them. Many of the other contestants often had to resort to flagging down private cars and begging for a ride to the stadium to compete in their event.
Nineteen twenty-four was also the first year the British government helped its competitors pay for their travel and accommodations. Until this time, each competitor had paid all his or her own expenses to compete in the games. It was a good thing that the British government had decided to change this, because Eric would never have been able to come up with the money necessary to cover his expenses.
During the opening ceremony, Eric marched proudly into Colombe Stadium with the rest of the British team. The Union Jack fluttered lightly over them. The team was dressed in blue and white, the women with white skirts and blue blazers and the men with white pants and the same blue blazers. The men also wore white straw hats. The drone of bagpipes played by the king’s own pipers filled the air as the athletes marched in. Each male member of the team took off his hat as a sign of respect as the team passed the podium where the French president and Baron Pierre de Courbetin stood watching. One by one the rest of the teams marched into the stadium until all forty-five teams were lined up side by side in the center of the field. Some teams were huge. The U.S. team alone had over four hundred competitors. On the other hand, China had sent only two athletes, and Haiti one. The lone Haitian had to carry his own flag as well as be the entire team!
As the hot afternoon sun beat down, the opening ceremony began. Baron Pierre de Courbetin declared the games open, cannons boomed, thousands of pigeons were released, and the Olympic flag was hoisted into the hot, stagnant air. The sixty thousand spectators cheered. The 1924 Olympic Games had officially begun.
As the teams were about to march out of the stadium, Lord Cadogan, head of the British Olympic Committee, strolled over to the British team and wished the members all luck. As he moved among the team members shaking their hands, he stopped right in front of Eric and in a loud voice declared, “To play the game is the only thing in life that matters.” Lord Cadogan looked directly at Eric as he spoke, and Eric got the point. Eric Liddell had thrown away a gold medal for Britain, and there were many who would never forgive him for it. As a result, Eric left the stadium that day a little less excited than when he’d arrived. But he still marched out with his head held high. No one, not even an English nobleman, could tell him a game was the most important thing in his life. It wasn’t. Eric didn’t care what people thought of his decision. Yet he was also determined to do his best in the races he was entered in and would wait and see what the outcome was. The outcome would be worth every bit of effort he had put forth.
Chapter 5
Against All Odds
The day after the opening ceremony was Sunday, not just any Sunday, but the Sunday Eric had refused to run on. Harold Abrahams, a student at Cambridge University, lined up with the other contestants to try to qualify for the 100-meter finals for Great Britain. Meanwhile, Eric Liddell was nowhere to be seen. Eric was at the Scots Kirk (church) across town. As the heats for the 100-meter sprint were being raced, Eric was giving one of his talks to the congregation. When he came out of church, he heard the good news that Harold Abrahams had won his heat and was entered in the final the following day.
Eric was thrilled at the news. Maybe Great Britain would get her gold after all. And that is just what happened. The next day, Eric was in the stadium cheering for Harold Abrahams as Harold streaked past the field and won in a great time—10.6 seconds. Harold was the first European ever to win a gold medal in the event. Eric clapped and whistled along with everyone else. As the Union Jack was raised over Colombes Stadium and “God Save the King” was played, Eric stood proudly watching as the gold medal was hung around Harold Abrahams’ neck. But along with national pride, Eric felt a tinge of sadness. Perhaps it could have been he standing there receiving the medal. Yet he didn’t regret his decision not to run on a Sunday. Of course, the fact that Great Britain had won the desired gold medal helped him feel better about things. At last, he hoped, the press would stop printing horrible stories about him and he could finally concentrate on the events he would be running in.
That night Eric slept soundly at the Hotel du Louvre, and he was up early the next morning to make sure he got a ride to the stadium in time for his race. Already several athletes in Paris for the games had endured the heartbreaking situation of not finding a taxi or a private car willing to take them to the stadium in time for them to compete in their events.
Eric made it to the stadium in plenty of time. He strolled out of the dressing room clad in the British track uniform—baggy white shorts that flapped around his knees and a white top with short sleeves. He began to limber up for the qualifying heat for the 200-meter race. Harold Abrahams was running in the same heat. Finally, the runners were called to the starting line. As soon as the starting pistol sounded, Eric and Harold streaked down the track, and they both qualified for the final. People who knew a lot about running, though, gave neither Eric nor Harold much hope of ending up among the first three finishers in the final. The American runners in the final were the hot favorites to win all the medals.
As Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams lined up for the 200-meter final, four other men were lined up beside them. All four were from the United States. When the starter’s gun cracked, the other runners got off to a great start. Eric, however, was slow off the mark. But in the dash for the finish line, he managed to overtake Harold Abrahams and two of the Americans. The other two Americans had crossed the line ahead of him, but Eric had won the bronze medal for Great Britain. Harold Abrahams had finished last.
The result of the 200-meter final left no doubt in anyone’s mind that the Americans were the best runners at the games and would likely win the other events as well, especially the 400-meter race. However, there was a rumor that the Swiss had a strong runner entered in the 400 meters who might be able to challenge for a medal. Great Britain might have had a chance at winning a medal if Guy Butler had not hurt his leg just before the games. Butler had won a silver medal in the event at the Antwerp Games in 1920. The British coaches had bandaged up his injured leg so that he could run, but it was too painful for him to crouch at the start of the race. Guy Butler would have to start from a standing position, making it very unlikely that he could win a medal. Eric was also entered in the race, but 400 meters wasn’t his normal race distance, and no one gave him any chance of winning a medal.
The heats for the 400-meter race were held on Thursday, the hottest day so far at the games. The temperature rose to 45 degrees Celcius (113 degrees Fahrenheit). The heat didn’t normally bother Eric. Like most runners, he liked the hot weather because it tended to make the muscles soft and flexible. But this weather was almost too hot to run in. The 10,000-meter cross-country race had been run earlier in the day, and of the thirty-eight runners who started the race, only twenty-three had made it to the finish line. The rest had collapsed from heat exhaustion along the route. The newspapers had quickly dubbed Colombes Stadium “The Cauldron,” and on this day it seemed a fitting nickname.
Despite the fact that no one expected him to do well, Eric threw all his energy into the race and managed to squeak into the finals. Amazingly, so did Guy Butler. The best qualifier in their heat, though, turned out to be the Swiss runner Joseph Imbach, who had stunned everyone by breaking the world record for the race during the heat. Imbach ran 400 meters in 48 seconds. People were enthusiastic about his chances for winning the gold medal, that is, until the American runner Horatio Fitch topped Imbach by winning his heat in 47.8 seconds!
The final was set for 7 p.m. Friday, July 11. Since a new 400-meter record had been set twice in the heats, the crowd began to gather early for the race. Eric took one of the few taxis the Americans weren’t using to the stadium around 4 p.m. In his pocket was a note that had been sent to his hotel room that read, “In the old book it says, ‘He who honors me, I will honor.’ Wishing you the best of success always.” It was signed by the masseur for the British team, and it meant a lot to Eric. Even if most people didn’t understand why he chose not to run on a Sunday, some did. As Eric walked into the stadium, he reached into his pocket and rested his hand on the note. Whatever happened in the final of the 400 meters, Eric knew he had honored God first, and that was worth more than any Olympic medal.
By quarter till seven, six runners were milling around the starting line: Horatio Fitch and Conrad Taylor representing the United States, Joseph Imbach of Switzerland, David Johnson of Canada, and the two British finalists, Guy Butler and Eric Liddell. As usual, Eric shook each runner’s hand and wished the runners success in the race. Spectators couldn’t help but notice Eric who, at 5’ 9”, was the shortest of the six runners. Again, anyone who knew anything about running would have known that to be good in the 400 meters, a runner needed to be tall. Eric might be a good sprinter, but for this distance, longer legs were a definite advantage.
