"If you know what he did in China and how he died in a Japanese camp," I do. "… you'll know this man was a saint." Only because he was… Eric Liddell was/is still respected and honored among Asians because: "Here was a man who was the embodiment of what the Christian faith was all about."
I just watched a video on that camp. Apprently only in the last couple of years did it come out that he died I guess gave his life that a pregnant woman might live.
@@vanmabrito5671 Kind of... He was offered a possibility of leaving the camp, but gave it up to a pregnant woman. Some time later, he thought he was having a nervous breakdown, but instead it was a brain tumor. He died of the brain tumor. Whether or not it was operable, and his life could have been spared a few years longer if he had been outside the concentration camp, nobody knows.
When we honor God without any expectations, we will, above all experience His peace. Peace not like the world gives, but like only Jesus can. Because He lives, we too shall live. Amen!
The part in the film where Jackson Shultz hands him a note just before the 400 Olympic final is true. And he ran with the note screwed up in his hand. “He who honours me, I will honour”. 1 Samuel 2.30. Slightly paraphrased. In the original footage from 1924, when enlarged, you can see the note. Great detail that Putnam included in Chariots of fire.
If you slow the film down as Liddell comes round the corner, you can see that Liddell’s hands are tightly clutched, most likely holding something in one hand.
Amazing to watch Eric Liddell run. He ran so fast he literally left the others seeing dirt. And he never slowed once not even at the finish, probably out of fear of not being able to see the others. Absolute Adonis of a man. Utterly immortal.
Thank you for this excellent footage and narrative. Chariots of Fire probablym my favorite film of all time. So wonderful to at last see extensive footage of the actual race.
Liddell also won the bronze medal in the 200 meters (Abrahams finished sixth). Abrahams also won a silver medal in the 4x100 meter relay, which was run on a Sunday. If Liddell had run in it, Great Britain might have won gold.Great Britain also finished third in the 4x400 meter relay that same Sunday. Again, with Liddell in the lineup, they may have won.
I was a marathon Club runner for 30 years Woverhamto marathon in my mind played charity off fire My time was 245 now I am 80 years old Just got a lot off memories I ran with the best marathon runners like Ron Hill Born Runner god bless him.
Don't talk pish! He won because he was the fastest, nothing to do with an imaginary person in the sky. Grow up! He would have probably won 2 gold medals if it wasn't for your silly superstitious nonsense .. so your god prevented him winning 2 medals!
@@rabbieburns2501 Wrong, he was actually a 100 meters runner. But the race was on Sunday. So he didn't run to honour God. This is why God honoured him in this race. Even if the chance to him was really bad for him, he runs a new Olympic Record. Is this a coincidence? Don't follow blindly your atheistic faith
Liddell knew the programme at least 6 months before the Games and prepared for the 400m. Burleigh wasn't even selected for the 400m so it's also a myth that he gave up his place.
Eric's most gloriest moments were when he returned to China after the race, served his faith & students. He died, age 43, in a Japaneses prison camp. "The essence of faith is fewness of words and abundance of deeds;.." - Baha'u'llah
Marita Koch, East German 400m runner is the current Womens world record holder @ 47.60 seconds and that's with 'more than likely' East German doping. Considering the advances etc in sports science, the record here Liddell set is pretty amazing.
I wonder how the athletes of today would deal with the cinder tracks and leather running spikes used back then.... and how times would compare in those conditions!
Giving his life to save that of a pregnant woman (and, indeed, her unborn child) was, conceivably, a more impressive act by Liddell than winning Olympic gold, but I've done neither, so I'm probably not the best person to comment
He was chosen to be swapped as a prisoner of the Japanese and sent over to the British. He gave his place to this woman. He did die of a tumor, but he didn't realize that he had it.
Lazokaen..you have no idea! He ran that time on a dirt track with inferior spikes. The record lasted for many years. No woman can run that fast. Koch was on drugs for sure! I am even beginning to question the women's times at 48 seconds. I ran a 47 second quarter split at the Penn Relays in Div. III in 1986 ...and I thought I was going to die! People who talk about track and field often know NOTHING about the sport! There are only a small number of men in the "history of the world" to run 43 and 44 second quarter miles. The vast majority of quarter miles are well below 44 seconds. A man running 47 seconds in a quarter mile is not a skip in the park. But many man today can do it. However, for a woman to run that fast today or when Marita Koch ran it...is nothing short of superhuman! Period!
Given the aftermath of WW1 and what happened throughout the Ottoman Empire as well as in Europe and across the world before 1919 followed by the Spanish Flu that also killed millions of people, I'm surprised there was anyone left by 1924.
Plus, he was in the outside lane and had only been training for the 400 meters for a few months. I most certainly think he had the talent to be competitive today.
Liddle was a genuine amateur hero. Abarahams basically bent the amateur code by hiring professional coach, which he could afford thanks to his father's wealth. The fact that the film "Chariots of Fire" featured Abrahams as well as Liddle probably served as a precursor of the aggresive commercialization of Olympic games along with the effective killing-off of amateurism in sports the 1980's.
mmmoroi The point of the movie is to compare the similar tribulations of either man, despite very significant outward differences. One of the points is that Abrahams, though wealthy, encounters resistance and disadvantage, both in his private and public life, that is quite similar to that of the more modest Liddell. A fair chunk of Abrahams's story in the movie deals with his hiring of Mussabini, and the expected criticism from the community at Cambridge. I don't think the movie at all glorifies, or even necessarily endorses, Abrahams's choice of coaching; I think it just uses it as a tool to illustrate.
I'm glad amateurism is gone. It would be to hard to control (being paid 5$ in 4 years to do sport would disqualified someone. It's better if they put their time (and moral) into the steroids use. And they can't even do that without corruption and blindness.
@@fyodordostoyevsky6917 If you read their real stories, I would argue that Eric Liddell's trials and tribulations were far greater than anything Harold Abrahams experienced while training for the Olympics. It was interesting to learn that Abrahams hadn't quite faced the level of antisemitism suggested in the film, and he came from an extremely wealthy family and had a brother who was a former Olympian. Meanwhile, Liddell was on his own, he was fairly poor, and he was extremely shy and reticent (much more so than in the film). I've read 4 biographies on Liddell (I recommend "For the Glory" and "The Flying Scott", and at one point, there were even protestors outside his dormitory chanting "You're a traitor to your country!" after he'd decided he would not run on Sunday. British elites also called Liddell a traitor to his country, unpatriotic, and a coward. The British Olympic committee harassed Liddell for months about his decision, tried numerous times to change his mind, and some even told him he had a poor understanding of the Bible. The press also slammed Liddell for giving up his best event (100 meters), and they trashed his running style (even when he died in a Japanese internment camp from a brain tumor in 1945, the press took a shot at his running style in articles). Yet still, Liddell was determined to compete in the 400 meters -- a race he had barely competed in before. He only had a few meager months to train for it, and practically nobody except his amateur coach, Tom McKerchar, and his family believed he could do it. The head of the British Olympic Committee called Liddell out again for his stance to not run on Sunday right after the opening ceremony in Paris, ostracizing Liddell from the entire team. Meanwhile, one of the prominent members of the British Olympic Committee wrote a column during the Olympics that was published in the newspaper making fun of Liddell's running style and suggesting that there was no way he would medal in the 400 meters. After Abrahams won gold in the 100 meters, both Abrahams and Liddell competed in the 200 meters. However, when Liddell won the bronze medal in the 200 meters, the British press ignored him completely, stating that "Britain fails in the 200 meters" and only citing the fact that Abrahams got dead last in the final. The press for Britain completely overlooked the fact that Liddell, a British athlete, had in fact won a medal. Then when the 400 meters rolled around, Liddell wasn't even considered a contender. He was on nobody's radar, and he was given the outside lane -- the absolute worst lane to run a 400 meter race in, especially on a 500 meter track like the one in Paris. Furthermore, Liddell (at around 5'8") was the shortest runner in the 400 meter final, which was yet another disadvantage for that distance, and unlike in the film, Liddell's family was not present at the Olympic games. It was just him and his coach. His victory that day was completely unexpected by everyone, and it is one of the greatest underdog stories when you really think about it. Best of all, Liddell had honored his faith and stayed true to his convictions against all odds, and his peers lauded him for exhibiting the best sportsmanship and the most humility at that Olympic Games.
I was reading the wiki for Harold Abrahams here - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Abrahams - and near halfway mark was a one line sentence that caught my attention, and it upset me [Abrahams was active in freemasonry.[24] ] I looked at the subscript notation at the end of the sentence and it revealed a 2015 date. Can anyone verify this, and why a Jew would be involved in Masonry, or are these secret societies just putting themselves in these wiki's to make themselves more relevant? Harold Abrams is not here to defend this allegation, and there is nothing in Chariots of Fire that would indicate that Harold had anything to do with the freemasons. Can anyone verify if this wiki is authentic, or filled with part truth mixed with lies?
I have no idea if Harold was into free masonry. I have his biography and have read about 1/2 of it. What I do know is that Harold was not really a practicing Jew. He loved pork (and ate it regularly), rarely ever went to synagogue, promoted Christianity to win the heart of a girl in college (although he wasn't a Christian), and consistently chose athletics, money, and his career over his Jewish faith. I think he actually had a quote along those lines. for what it's worth, when push came to shove, he also chose athletics and his career over his Christian fiancé (hence, why she dumped him in the 1920s). Harold only emphasized that he was Jewish when it came to combatting anti-Semitism.
Totally crazy for liddell not to compete in the 100 mtrs in my opinion it was a much bigger sin to waste god given talent by not competing in the 100 mtrs
