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At a ceremony at the MOWA World Indoor Athletics Exhibition held at the St Enoch Center in Glasgow, World Athletics President Sebastian Coe announced the death of ‘Flying Scotsman’ Eric Liddell. It was announced that the World Athletics Heritage Shield was awarded in this category. .
Coe presented the plaque to Liddell’s niece, Susan Liddell Caton. Her father Ernest was Eric’s younger brother. Caton is one of the patrons of Eric Liddell Community, a care charity and community hub based in Edinburgh. Their activities, which reflect Liddell’s code of ethics, include supporting people with dementia, providing day care services and welfare programs for unpaid volunteers.
The presentation of the plaque took place in front of 150 invited guests, including 1980 Olympic 100m champion Alan Wells and 2000 Olympic heptathlon champion Dennis Lewis. They had donated historic clothing and shoes from their athletic lives at the beginning of the ceremony. World Athletics Museum.
World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said: “On behalf of World Athletics, I am honored to announce this award which celebrates one of Britain’s greatest and most inspiring Olympic champions.”
“As immortalized in the 1981 Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire, Liddell, a devoutly religious man, refused to run the 100 meters, his preferred event, at the 1924 Paris Games. I made a principled decision not to compete, because the qualifying timetable meant that I would be competing,” on a Sunday he considered sacrosanct.
“Instead, Liddell switched his Olympic ambitions to the 200m and 400m. He finished with bronze in the former and won gold in one lap, a new Olympic record, but was drawn in the outside lane and It was all the more remarkable because he ran under the radar of his more experienced competitors.
“Liddell poured his heart and soul into running, carried that commitment through every part of his life, and ultimately gave his life to his faith and ministry.”
Liddell Caton said: “I am very pleased that World Athletics has chosen to recognize my uncle Eric Liddell with this award, 100 years after his success at the 1924 Paris Olympics.
“I am delighted to accept this report on behalf of the Liddell family, and I hope his legacy continues to inspire young people and future generations.”
The plaque will go on permanent display at the Eric Liddell Community, based in a converted church in Edinburgh. The charity is leading the Eric Liddell 100, a program of exciting events and activities to recognize and celebrate the achievements of Scottish and international icons.
The World Athletics Heritage Plate is a place-based recognition awarded for “an outstanding contribution to the global history and development of athletics and cross-country, mountain, road and off-field athletics disciplines.” Trail, ultra running, race walking.”
Eric Henry Liddell (January 16, 1902 – February 21, 1945)
Liddell was born in 1902 in the northeastern Chinese city of Tianjin, the son of missionary parents working for the Church of Scotland.
Liddell, who completed a Bachelor of Pure Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, was a talented rugby player who won seven caps for Scotland as a winged three-quarter, but ultimately used his leg speed to focus on success in athletics. I decided to do so.
Liddell won five consecutive Scottish titles in the 100 and 220 yards (1921-1925) and two gold medals in the 440 yards (1924 and 1925). He won the Amateur Track and Field Association Championships in the 100 and 220 yards in 1923 and the 440 yards in 1924, proving his Olympic eligibility. The latter was an individual trial in Paris.
The manner in which he won the 400m Olympic victory just days after winning the bronze medal in the 200m was remarkable. He started with a breakneck pace and with his grit and determination held on to the lead and won by six meters with a time of 47.6 meters, his Olympic record.
To put the magnitude of his Olympic performance into perspective, Liddell went to Paris with a personal best score of 49.6 points, and his winning time (a European record) would not be broken until 1936.
Liddell continued running in 1925, winning three Scottish individual titles and winning the relay. Later that year, after graduating from Edinburgh University, he went to China to accompany his father as a missionary and dedicated his life to serving the poor people of China.
He married Florence Mackenzie, who was born in Tianjin in 1934 to a Canadian missionary family, and the couple had three daughters.
In 1943, with World War raging, Liddell’s wife and children followed the British government’s advice for its citizens to leave China and settled in Canada with Florence’s family. Liddell continued his mission and ultimately gave his life for his faith, dying at the age of 43 in a wartime concentration camp.
“Eric was known for his many accomplishments as an athlete, as a husband, as a father, as a godly soul who lived his life according to his beliefs, as a graduate of the University of Edinburgh, and as a missionary in China who refused to leave the people he cared for. He is remembered for his time during World War II. What more could he have done if he had lived longer than 43?” – Eric Liddell Community.
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