Eric Liddell

Eric Henry Liddell was born in Tianjin, northern China, to Scottish Protestant missionaries. Sent to Eltham College in London at age six, Liddell grew to become Scotland's greatest sporting prodigy, starring in seven international rugby union matches for Scotland's national team and remaining undefeated on the track in 100-yard and 220-yard sprints.

Entering the 1924 Paris Olympics as Britain's prime hope for the 100 meters, Liddell learned months earlier that the qualifying heats were scheduled for Sunday, the Christian Sabbath. As a devout Presbyterian who believed running on the Lord's Day violated the Fourth Commandment, Liddell politely but firmly refused to compete, enduring fierce criticism from the British Olympic Committee and the press.

Instead, Liddell trained for the 400 meters—a distance at which he was not favored. On 11 July 1924, as he entered the stadium, a pipe band played and a team trainer slipped a biblical note into his hand: 'He that honours me, I will honour.' Running the entire 400 meters at full sprint speed from lane six, his head thrown back toward the sky, Liddell won gold in a world record time of 47.6 seconds. In 1925, he returned to China as a missionary teacher. Interned by Japanese forces in Weihsien Civilian Internment Camp in 1943, Liddell ministered selflessly to elderly and sick inmates until dying of an inoperable brain tumor months before the camp's liberation.