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| show-medals = yes }} Eric Henry Liddell (; 16 January 1902 – 21 February 1945) was a Scottish athlete, rugby union international player, and missionary, who was forced to choose between his religious beliefs and competing in an Olympic race. After refusing to run in the heats on a Sunday, for his favoured distance, men's 100 metres, Liddell could still compete in the men's 400 metres at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, which he won. He returned to China in 1925 to serve as a missionary teacher. Aside from two furloughs in Scotland, he remained in China until his 1945 death in a Japanese civilian internment camp. Liddell's Olympic training and racing, and the religious convictions that influenced him, are depicted in the Oscar-winning 1981 film ''Chariots of Fire'', in which he is portrayed by fellow Scot Ian Charleson. ==Early life== Eric Liddell, often called the "Flying Scotsman" after the record breaking locomotive, was born 16 January 1902, in Tientsin, in north China, the second son of the Rev and Mrs James Dunlop Liddell, who were Scottish missionaries with the London Missionary Society. Liddell went to school in China until the age of five. At the age of six, he and his eight-year-old brother Robert were enrolled in Eltham College, a boarding school in south London for the sons of missionaries. Their parents and sister Jenny returned to China. During the boys' time at Eltham, their parents, sister and new brother Ernest came home on furlough two or three times and were able to be together as a family, mainly living in Edinburgh. At Eltham, Liddell was an outstanding sportsman, being awarded the Blackheath Cup as the best athlete of his year, playing for the First XI and the First XV by the age of 15, later becoming captain of both the cricket and rugby union teams. His headmaster, George Robertson, described him as being "entirely without vanity". Liddell became well known for being the fastest runner in Scotland while at Oxford College. Newspapers carried stories of his feats at track meets, and many articles stated that he was a potential Olympic winner. Liddell was chosen to speak for Glasgow Students' Evangelistic Union by one of the GSEU's co-founders, D.P. Thomson, because he was a strong Christian. The GSEU hoped that he would draw large crowds to hear the Gospel. The GSEU would send out a group of eight to ten men to an area where they would stay with the local population. It was Liddell's job to be a lead speaker and to evangelize the men of Scotland. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Eric Liddell」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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