On Eric Liddell, the Olympics and China

When the Winter Olympics gather next month in China, it won’t be the first time the quadrennial games were held in Beijing. The first was in 2008 when the summer games were convened in the Chinese capitol.

That was the year when NBC sports reporter and former pro tennis player Mary Carillo produced something of a masterpiece in Olympic history and coverage.

It was a profile of an Olympic champion whose name will be forever remembered both for the gold medal he won in 1924 and his missionary commitment to the Chinese people during the worst of times.

If you saw the 1981 Academy Award-winning “Chariots of Fire,” you know the story of Eric Liddell’s winning race in the 1924 Olympics, but you likely know little or nothing of the China chapters of this remarkable Christian’s life.

Being of Scots descent myself (MacFarlane, on my Mother’s side), I am perhaps just a wee bit biased, but I can assure you that the following is a remarkable and timely illustration of superb sports journalism, uncanny athletic prowess and the grace-filled perseverance of faith. By the way, if the background music in Carillo’s piece sounds familiar, it’s from another classic movie about a Scots hero — “Braveheart,” about William Wallace:

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