The Flying Scotsman

Book excerpt: Eric Liddell is famous for being the man who would not compromise his religious principles and refused to compete in the Olympics on a Sunday - despite the fact that he was the red hot favourite for the gold. Instead, he entered a different event that was not being competed on the Sabbath...and won a gold anyway. One of Scotland's finest athletes, Liddell was feted throughout the United Kingdom. At the height of his fame, however, he slipped quietly out of the limelight to become a missionary in China, where he later came to an unpleasant end in a Japanese internment camp. Eric Liddell's remarkable story was the subject of the smash 1982 film "Chariots of Fire."