Running a Straight Race

Prophets of Recovery in Chariots of Fire

This summer, athletes from over two hundred different countries will travel to Paris, France for the Summer Olympics, which will take place a century after that same city hosted the Summer Games back in 1924. These 1924 Olympics occupy the climactic moments of one of my favorite movies: Chariots of Fire (1981), which recounts the true story of England’s track team that competed that year. A lot has changed in the course of a hundred years, but the message of this team’s running journey has a timelessness and weight that do not waver with time. 

If you like running, even just a little bit, Chariots of Fire is the kind of movie that will make you want to get out on the beach, queue up Vangelis and run til your legs give out. Maybe. I recently rewatched the film with my sister and brother-in-law, and since I’ve been thinking about the parallels between running and recovery, I found a lot in this story to write about. The movie focuses on a core four runners with special emphasis on the two greatest: Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams. The other two - Lord Andrew Lindsay and Aubrey Montague - function more as side characters but play important roles in the trajectory of the team’s growth and in this recovery translation. Each of these four runners reveals something meaningful and worthy of note as runners and as men living according to the principles of recovery. 

The film has a framed narrative, beginning and ending in 1978 with the celebration of life for Harold Abrahams, at which Lindsay and Montague are the only remaining of the four men alive. As Lindsay delivers a tribute to his friend, the camera cuts to Montague before fading to the famous beach scene of the Olympic team, all in their white Olympic training kits, running barefoot through the tide to the theme of Vangelis. Side note - I just learned that Vangelis is not a band but the professional moniker of Greek composer Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou. Great name. Anyway, in this running scene, the camera pans over the men’s faces, pausing briefly on each of the main characters, and we get a glimpse into each of their characters in this way. Montague is first; he runs with a calm demeanor, focused on the task at hand. Behind him, Lindsay runs with an expression of delight; his shirt is spattered with dark spots, and his gait is relaxed as he looks around at his team, his smile never faltering even as he wipes from his face the sandy water kicked up by his teammates’ feet. Liddell runs with his trademark wild arms clawing at the air and his smiling face upturned to the sky. Abrahams looks like a man on a fatal mission, his face deathly grim as he follows his teammates across the beach. 

The vision from afar of the men in their matching white running together counteracts brilliantly with these individualized closeups. We see the different ways for each of them to run the same course, each bearing with him the unique joys and burdens of his own life but uniting himself to the others in his forward efforts. It’s a good way to view ourselves and our fellows in recovery. We can choose to be alone in our struggles and triumphs, keeping them to ourselves with the conviction that the race is ours alone to run; or we can unburden ourselves through cultivating deeper connections, and in doing so we see that we are one of many running on this course on which we find ourselves. We still carry with us the individual self and the history that led us to this current race, but being present in this race or this day in recovery lets us see the truth that we’re not alone in where we are or where we’re going.

We don’t receive much of Montague’s past, but we meet him first, and he remains a central witness in the life of Abrahams and a key player in the team’s Olympic experience. True to the introduction we receive of him on the beach, Montague proves to be calm, quiet and focused as a man. He listens more than he speaks, and he exhibits love and acceptance of his teammates. He puts himself second to the others, seemingly happier to play a supporting role in life than the protagonist even of his own story. In Montague we see the value of humility, selflessness and listening. He becomes a sort of disciple to Harold Abrahams, with whom most of his scenes take place. 

Lindsay has a bit more to say. Our first encounter with him after the beach scene comes when he volunteers to compete in the college dash, also known as the Great Court Run, alongside Abrahams during orientation at Cambridge. The challenge involves racing around the Great Court within the time the clock takes to strike the hour of twelve, a feat deemed nearly impossible. Lindsay shows up to run with cigarette in hand and dressed in slacks, not exactly prepared for a sprint, but eager to participate so that his friend won’t have to run alone. This introduction gives us a lot of his character. He genuinely loves being on a team. He thrives on the energy of his comrades, finds joy in their successes, and does not flaunt his own natural talent to the extent that he might. Lindsay is fast, which he proves in the Great Court Run as well as in his Olympic performance, which earns him a silver medal, but he does not receive the same recognition or exhibit the same intensity as Abrahams or Liddell. I’ve always liked Lindsay the most, and I think this may be one of the reasons. Lindsay is grateful for his lot in life: he comes from wealth, he runs fantastically, and he has natural charisma. 

He doesn’t seem to find his joy purely in his possessions or talents though; he values his teammates more than he feels the need to be the best or most loved himself. In the Olympics, he valiantly offers up his own race to Liddell when his Scottish teammate refuses to run the hundred meter dash for reasons of faith. Lindsay explains that he already has his medal, and gives up the opportunity he worked for with a selfless grace. “Just to see you run,” he tells Liddell as he assures him of his decision. Lindsay understands his sacrifice as something he can do to both honor his teammate’s conviction to his faith and give his country and himself the chance to see Liddell run. Lindsay shows us the value in functioning as a community in both running and recovery. He stands as an example of how we can help each other and give back to the cycle of gratitude when we experience the gifts of recovery. Having won his own medal, Lindsay gives Liddell the chance to win for himself, for God and for his country; and so Liddell’s subsequent 400 meter race becomes more than one he earned on his own. It becomes the gift of another man’s selflessness and love. Spoiler alert, he crushes it. 

Eric Liddell gives me chills when I watch him run, or at least when I watch Ian Charleson run as Liddell in the movie. He has a characteristic form that makes it seem as though he is not even in control of his own body, running with some inner force propelling him and seeping out of him. When not running, he maintains a calm, composed demeanor. He seems the least opposing person you’d come across until he begins running. Liddell is a missionary, home to Scotland from China in his work, and he balances his running with his missionary work, often using his prowess as an athlete to appeal to the interests of his audience when he delivers sermons. 

He compares life and faith to his knowledge of racing with ease. After a particularly rainy race, which he wins, Liddell addresses the congregation. He acknowledges his win, but he takes the opportunity to ask his audience to think more deeply about the experience they have just witnessed: “I want you to do more than just watch a race…I want to compare faith to running in a race…it requires concentration of will, energy of soul.” Here’s his full speech here.

Liddell remarks on the elation that comes with the finish of a race, the joy of winning and of running well; however, he acknowledges that when the race ends, the runners and spectators return to the challenges of life, to whatever individual crises the race has temporarily erased from the forefront of their minds. Running, like life, contains similar discomforts and setbacks. So how do we concentrate our wills and focus our energy on the goal at hand when faced with the variabilities of life? Liddell identifies the source of power that allows us to race well even in hardship as something that comes from within. He quotes Jesus’s words in Scripture on the kingdom of God being within us, and that God is available to all who seek him with all their hearts. Here’s the full film clip of this speech. I’ve been thinking a lot about Eric Liddell and what it means to run a straight race. Looking at his life and his running, he seems to just glide through it all with ease in a way that makes my own life and race look clumsy and far from being straight. But when I consider the unique challenges in his life and what he defines as a straight race, I can see the potential for me and really everyone to live in the same way that he does. 

A significant source of conflict in Liddell’s life comes from the pressure his sister puts on him to devote himself entirely to missionary work and set aside his running. Throughout much of the film, she does not hide her disapproval of his choice to run since she feels it interferes with his true life’s work. I’ve always considered her a nuisance, just an annoying side character who whines because her brother isn’t doing what she wants him to do. Considering the sibling dynamic as something a bit more complicated than that, I can see the fear in her actions and the weight that her attitude creates in her brother’s life as well. The only times I haven’t had the full support of my siblings have been in my active addiction, and even then I felt the terrible weight of knowing the people I loved most couldn’t enthusiastically encourage me in whatever endeavors I chose to pursue. How can someone who loves you support something that they believe isn’t in line with the straight race you were meant to run? I know that I wouldn’t be where I am today in my recovery without the people who support me and love me on even the worst days. We need our people. I know I need mine, and Liddell needs his sister. We might still achieve milestones in life without their support, but the shared triumphs mean so much more. 

Liddell has full conviction in the fact that running complements his faith life, but I’m sure he wishes his sister believed in him with the same conviction and trust. He finally talks to her about his running, telling her that while missionary work is his life’s calling, he knows that God also made him fast. He explains that racing is his way of practicing gratitude for this gift, that when he runs he feels God’s pleasure. I love that line. That’s how we should feel when we’re doing what we were born to do, when we’re using the gifts God has given us in a way that glorifies him for doing just that. That’s where Liddell’s power lies, in his complete conviction that his running is a gift from God rather than a means to earn glory for himself. 

Part of Liddell’s seemingly superhuman talent as a runner stems from his belief that his power comes from God rather than himself. We see this conviction at work in an incredible quarter mile race when a fellow runner knocks him down in the first hundred meters. Liddell rolls onto the ground as the other three runners sprint forward, but he rises with a look of grim determination on his face before flying after the others with intense speed. He overtakes them one by one and finishes first before collapsing to the ground; it seems as though some force possessed his body for the race and left him gasping for air once its work was done. Liddell’s feat is thrilling, and it demonstrates the superior power of his spirit over physical and mental discomfort. I’ve been thinking a lot about how Liddell’s race exemplifies the way we need to come back from setbacks such as relapse, loss, disappointment and other experiences that may seem capable of derailing our lives. Relapse especially poses a major obstacle in recovery, since it does seem to erase our progress back to square one. When Liddell goes down in the race, he could have stayed down and blamed the man who pushed him for ruining his race. That would have been the easier move. The fall makes a difficult race a lot harder; not only does he still face the majority of a quarter mile sprint, but he runs from the back with the competition already in full momentum far ahead of him. But Liddell’s advantage is that he has absolutely nothing to lose by getting back up and chasing them down. His seeming disadvantage ignites a force greater than he had before and propels his body past his known threshold of speed and effort. He works harder than he had to before, but the added effort makes his win all the more powerful. He finds that he can do more than anyone, perhaps even himself, thought possible. 

When we fall in our recovery, our minds and bodies turn against us and urge us to stay fallen. Our mind tells us it will be even harder to get back up, and our body screams in agreement. They’re both conditioned to avoid pain if possible, and they can prefer numbness to the pursuit of greatness. It’s our spirit that has to win the argument against them and push us back up to our feet. Liddell’s belief in his speed being a gift from God allows him to channel that speed and power into a performance that not only gets him through the race but wins it against all odds. We have to find similar belief in a higher power. In God, in our communities, in some reason and order to things. It has to be greater than just ourselves, because without this belief we fall again and again. Without this belief, we will give up or war on without the power available to make us as great as we were born to be. 

Liddell wins because he runs a straight race, and a straight race means running for more than just himself and with a clear sense of his place in the world. He views his time on earth and his physical abilities as gifts given to him by a higher power, and he lives to glorify that power rather than himself. When he makes it to the Olympics, Liddell creates headline news when he refuses to run the final heat of the hundred meter dash because the event takes place on a Sunday. Even when the Duke of Sutherland tries to persuade him to honor his country, Liddell makes it clear that he cannot place any power, not even his future king, above God. He recognizes that whatever power or talent man has, it has been given to him by God and should therefore be used only to glorify Him. Liddell risks his chance at an Olympic medal because he cannot compromise his belief in honoring Sunday as the Lord’s day, and his faith is rewarded. Most often, God works in our life through other people. In this instance, Lindsay offers a solution, sacrificing his own chance at another medal so that Liddell can run on another day in a different race. In our lives, we need to remember that this is how our higher power works: through the people who cultivate a similar connection with God and others. Like Liddell, Lindsay does not seek to glorify himself. His concept of a higher power seems to lie in his love for his team. Liddell uses running as a means of connecting with his congregation, and he also bears witness to his faith by attributing his talent to God rather than boasting of self-made greatness. He works hard, but he does so with gratitude for the tools he has been given to work with. Because he orients his life in a direct pursuit of glorifying God in the world, in others, and in himself, he runs a straight race. 

Ironically, Harold Abrahams, who lacks that direct conviction that Liddell has in his faith, literally runs the straightest race of all four of these men: the hundred meter dash. However, his hurt ego rules his mind, causing him to wander down paths of resentment and fear that hold him back from actualizing his full potential in life and in racing. When we meet Abrahams, we meet a young man who appears to know exactly what he wants: to win. We quickly realize through disclosures to Montague and Sybil, the woman with whom he falls in love, that he pushes his body to run as a means to escape prejudice, to prove generations wrong about his Jewish heritage, and to lay claim to some measure of fame for himself in a world of people he feels hate him for his inheritance as the descendant of the line of God’s chosen people. He deeply resents being Jewish and the discrimination that accompanies that identity. His feelings are understandable. We see him treated dismissively on more than one occasion - once by his own future king, and he bears the generational trauma of the Jewish people in his blood and in his mind. 

For Abrahams, running has become a means of vindicating himself of the prejudices against his Jewish heritage and tearing down anyone he deems his oppressor, and the enemy appears to be everyone except for his teammates, coach and Sybil. He tells Montague of his father’s dream for his sons to become true Englishmen, equals in their country, but says that his father failed to see that the country was one of religious prejudice and segregation in which the men in power would never truly accept him. He asserts his goal to “run them off their feet”, an apt description for the way in which he takes on both life and running. He runs to defeat everyone who stands in his way, and he works to do the same in life: his main ambition being to prove himself not only worthy of other men’s approval but superior to them in intellect as well as in his capacity as a runner. On his first date with Sybil, he explains his reasons for running as something more compulsive than love for the sport, saying, “I’m more of an addict.” He calls running his weapon against being Jewish, something that Sybil finds humorous, but that Abrahams maintains with the same grim seriousness we see in his face as he runs on the beach in the opening scene. Abrahams may not love running in a pure way, but he needs it.

When Abrahams loses in a race against Liddell, he shuts down. He cannot get over the loss because he needs the win so desperately to feel worthy. Winning doesn’t solve his feeling of not being enough, but it gives him enough temporary relief to focus on the next race that might just make him feel validated. Because he lives in this unsatisfied cycle of running to win for himself, there is no place for running to lose; he completely loses his sense of purpose, his motivation to try again, and his ability to accept the love and admiration of Sybil, who delivers the greatest compliment I’ve ever heard: “You ran like a god. I was proud of you.” He can’t even accept that glorious remark because he is so convinced of his lack of value. Sybil tries in vain to convince him of the silliness in placing so much worth in one race, but she cannot get through to him. We see his running obstruct his relationship with her because he feels that running alone is not enough. He needs to win in order to receive love. This is because, unlike with Liddell, running is not an extension of Abrahams’ self at this point. Running is an escape from self for Abrahams, and it only temporarily achieves this escape from his mind when he can win. Without the win, running is merely a failed attempt to escape. 

The concepts of escape and connection function similarly, which is part of the allure in addiction. Addictions to substances or practices allow a temporary escape from self. When we drink, use or partake in something that can relieve us of the uncomfortable or painful feelings and thoughts we experience, we begin to rely on that outlet, viewing escape as the only sure way to properly cope with the trauma, ennui and discomfort that only build inside us as we do so. Connection also relieves this inner turmoil by taking us outside ourselves, but it does so in a different, more sustainable manner. Connection - with our higher power, with the other people in our lives, and with our true selves - provides a spiritual bridge that makes us less alone. This bridge is the extension of self that connects us to others, that awakens our realization of God in our lives, and that solidifies the truth that we are not alone. It relieves the lonely burden of self that we carry in addiction and that only seems to lessen when we turn to this addiction for relief. As Abrahams falls apart after losing to Liddell, we can see just how isolating and crippling the trauma he carries is, and we can also see that he lacks an effective solution for living with it. 

Just as Lindsay arrives with a solution for Liddell, the people in Abrahams’ life work to help him turn his running from an isolating cycle into an extension of self. Sam Mussabini, a renowned running coach who sees Abrahams race against Liddell, begins working with the young man because sees potential for more in him and perhaps because he sees something of himself in the runner. Sybil does not leave him, despite his failure to believe her comment about like a god; and she remains a patient, understanding support for him as he trains for the Olympics. Abrahams learns to run with a coach, to listen to someone else’s way of doing things, and to take time for recovery and reflection. As opposed to his previous training, which he did alone, we get a montage of Abrahams going through various exercises and speed training under the instruction of Sam. These clips are intercut with depictions of Liddell’s training in Scotland; this montage  of both men training in their respective homelands and in their own ways suggests the new commonality in the way that running holds a place in their lives. It has become for Abrahams what it continues to be for Liddell: an extension of the way each man is learning to live in the world. 

Their performances at the Paris Olympics reflect the rewards they and we can experience when we run and live for what truly matters. Abrahams prepares to run the hundred meters on Sunday, the day that Liddell has opted out of running. His conversation with Montague reveals that he still struggles to trust in connection rather than escape to alleviate the demons in him. Anticipating the start, that moment filled with nerves and fear, he says “I’ll raise my eyes and look down that corridor…four feet wide with ten lonely seconds to justify my whole existence.” Abrahams still feels that his worth depends on his performance within this limited scope of time and space. He views the race as a span of time that will make or break his value; he fails to view it as just ten more seconds of an ongoing progression in his life. Of course it’s an important ten seconds, but it is no more important than the seconds and minutes he will spend once he crosses the line, regardless of his ranking among the other runners. He confides in Montague, “I’ve known the fear of losing, but now I’m almost too frightened to win.”

This one is a complicated fear: the fear of greatness, of finally grasping what we’ve wanted for so long. I think a lot of that fear stems from the unknown element. In active addiction, my known world consisted of disappointment, heartbreak, depression, unmet expectations, feelings of unworthiness and invisibility. I think running appealed to me partly because it was something I could do to earn a piece of the world I wanted. If I completed a big race, I briefly experienced a sense of accomplishment and worthiness; I felt recognized, valued and fulfilled because I had something tangible to show for my hard work and ability. When the feeling faded, I found another race. I wasn’t totally aware at the time of these subconscious attractions to races, but as I compare past races to my most recent one, which I trained for and completed while in recovery, I can see the drastic differences in my race experiences. While my previous races had all been for me, this one meant so much to me because so many people were involved in my training and fundraising, and the entire race was about the community at the heart of it. Even though I’d initially wanted to run this race in order to align my training and race with my recovery, I still experienced so much fear in the month before the race and my one year date, which took place days before the race. I couldn’t pinpoint the reason for the fear, but I think some of it stemmed from the thought that I’d never cared so much about two goals in my life and been so close to achieving them before. I’m a little over a year into my recovery, and in that time I’ve experienced what it is to live well and to do the right thing over and over again by choosing to accept God’s will over my own. It’s amazing, but I’m more familiar with the consequences that come with choosing to assert my own will, to live a life dictated by my addiction, to push people away rather than welcome them into my life, and to do things for myself and by myself. It’s a miserable way to be, but it’s what I knew for a long time, so a lot of the time I’m afraid of the unknown involved in just letting go of that old way and embracing a way of being that promises the happiness and love I’ve always wanted. Today I know that I can experience real love and joy if I can just accept the life I have, but practicing that kind of acceptance and doing the work is hard in a way that’s new and different from the kind of difficulty I experienced in active addiction. So I experience fear a lot of the time; and when I entertain that fear, I stand in my own way. I risk not running a straight race and never winning for pure fear of winning itself. 

Abrahams moves forward despite his fear, preparing himself with grim silence in the locker room with the other athletes, two of whom he regards as the fastest runners in the world. In his race kit, he finds an envelope from Sam that contains a letter and a small charm on a chain. Sam will not be present at the race; he listens to the noise from the arena from afar, alone in his room. But Sam requests that Harold accept the charm and wear it: a token of his faith in him and a symbol of his connection with him. Sam’s conviction in Harold’s ability to win and his worthiness of achieving the gold medal is enough for Harold to look his fear in the eyes and move forward with his intention to run the greatest race of his life. We see this in Harold’s resolve as he looks at Charlie Paddock and Jackson Scholz and as he walks calmly out to the track, unphased by the crowds or his competition. In placing the charm around his neck and wearing it for his race, Abrahams accepts Sam’s belief in him; he no longer goes forth with the conviction that he has to conquer his enemies through running. Rather, he carries with him the connection that he has built with his coach and lets that lead him into the fearful territory of racing and of being great. 

The Harold Abrahams who walks onto the track for his Olympic race appears to be channeling a strength and calm he didn’t have before. As Abrahams bends into his starting position, we hear a voiceover of Sam’s advice in his mind. Two things that Sam emphasizes in preparing Abrahams for the race are to keep his head down in the first stride and to keep from looking at the other runners. Abrahams does this, focusing his gaze down, and the camera zooms in on the charm that swings from his neck like a pendulum. He has not let fear intimidate him or convince him of his lack of worth, and he does not even seem to notice the other runners lining up beside him. The camera gives us a close up of Charlie Paddock looking down the hundred meter stretch to the finish and of Abrahams looking down to the space between his hands, as instructed by his coach, and we see here a vision of some change in him. While Paddock’s gaze fixates on that lonely stretch that Abrahams viewed as the justification of his existence, Abrahams keeps his gaze on the space he occupies in the present. He is more mindful of himself and his world in the present; he is focused and calm, and he runs without anger or fear, but with trust in his coach’s belief in his ability to win. Abrahams wants to win, but he doesn’t need to win. 

Abrahams wins, and the scene adopts a slow motion, surreal quality that reflects significance of the moment for him. It is an incredible triumph, but it doesn’t define him. It is at once everything he wanted but not at all as large in his life as he once believed it to be. Following his win, Abrahams shakes hands with Liddell, the only man to have beaten him in the film. The camera then cuts to Sam celebrating quietly in his room before showing Sybil in her dressing room receiving news of the win via a telephone message from Abrahams himself. In showing us how his former rival, his coach and his girlfriend share in his win, the film demonstrates Abrahams’ progress in opening his life to connection with others.  When he quietly exits the locker room even as Montague calls out to him with excitement, we see that the most important things to him upon winning are not celebrating his personal achievement but sharing his glory with the people in his life who have helped him reach his moment of triumph. He goes to see Sam, and the two men make a toast alone to his Olympic win, both of their achievements. Harold calls him “the greatest trainer in the world,” acknowledging the role of his mentor in his achievement as a crucial factor. He then says, “Come on, Sam. We’re going home.” His use of the word “home” implies a deeper connection to his country than the wary sense of displacement he experienced there before. He focuses now on his people and on the relationships that make any place a home. These are Abrahams’ last words in the film; we see him embrace Sybil after getting off the train, and the next time we have reference to him is back at his memorial as Lindsay and Montague reminisce on his life. In multiple senses, Harold Abrahams has finally returned home. He has found a life with love and connection in it, and in leaving the physical world through death, he has returned to his Maker. 

On the day of Liddell’s new race: the 400 meter dash, American athlete Jackson Scholz slips him a note right before the runners line up: “It says in the old book: ‘he that honors me, I will honor’.” Liddell folds the note into his hand and runs with it, winning the race with seeming ease and never giving up the staggered lead he has on the inside lane runners. After his win, his teammates hold him aloft in celebration, and Liddell sees his sister in the crowd, finally demonstrating her support for his running by making the trip to Paris to witness his run. His insistence of keeping God and his faith first in his life has convinced her of the value in his running as an extension of his life as a missionary. 

When Liddell had met with the English committee who was trying to persuade him to run the hundred meters on Sunday, one of the committee members expressed relief in the decision ultimately made, expressing his view that they had been asking Liddell to compromise on something no man should ever be asked to give. He explains that Liddell’s running, his speed is an extension of his life and force, and in asking him to run on a day that violated the deepest part of his identity, they had been trying “to sever his running from his self.” That understanding of Liddell as a runner is fantastic. I love this concept of running as an extension of self. Liddell lives to honor God, and he uses his running to celebrate God’s creation of him as he is. I think that’s how we will live our best lives too, by seeing ourselves as the persons God made and cultivating our unique talents and passions in ways that contribute something to the greater whole of our communities. Liddell recognizes his speed as a gift, and he knows that the power to see the race to its end comes from within, from the place in him that cultivates a deep connection to God and gleans strength from that relationship. 

The title Chariots of Fire may reference any of a number of works, and the oldest of these references to a chariot of fire is found in the Bible in the Second Book of Kings. It’s a story I’m not very familiar with, but I read it and will try to make sense of it as it pertains to recovery and functions as a title to this film. The Bible story involves two prophet - Elijah and Elisha, whose names respectively translate into something like “Jehovah is my God” and “God is my salvation” in Hebrew; hence, the soundalike. Elijah is the older of the prophets, and he had anointed Elisha a prophet at the command of God before the other man joined him in his work. In the Second Book of Kings, Elijah knows that he will soon be taken away by God, leaving Elisha behind on earth to continue his prophetic work. When the time comes, a chariot of fire and horses of fire appear and separate the two prophets before Elijah ascends into heaven in a whirlwind (2 KINGS 2:11). Elisha calls out to Elijah, naming him as his father; according to a request made before his mentor departs, Elisha inherits the spirit of Elijah in his absence. Elisha, blessed with the spirit of Elijah, goes forth to fulfill his prophetic duty of being the voice of his God. 

I feel like if we consider the framed narrative of the movie, this title functions on multiple levels. The movie begins and ends with the now elderly Montague and Lindsay at the funeral of Harold Abrahams. The camera zooms in on Montague before cutting to the famous scene of the Olympic team running on the beach to the Vangelis theme. Throughout the movie, Montague serves as the closest thing we have to a narrator through voiceovers of the occasional letter he pens to his mother. Montague also becomes a sort of disciple to Abrahams; they are friends, but the power dynamic clearly involves Abrahams as the leader of the two. I noticed in my most recent viewing that Montague has very little dialogue; whereas Abrahams’ lines wax to the point of sounding sermonic at times. Montague listens and bears witness to Abrahams’ life and running, even as he lives and runs on his own. 

In reality, Montague did not outlive Abrahams (he died thirty years prior to his teammate) so the choice to have him as an attendee of Abrahams’ celebration of life in the movie is a divergence from the truth that deserves some attention.  As the ceremony ends, the choir sings verses from ‘Jerusalem’, a song version of the poem by William Blake that includes the lines: “Bring me my spear, oh! Clouds unfold. Bring me my chariot of fire!”. Montague’s presence at this ceremony honoring Abrahams reflects the same kind of experience that Elisha had when his mentor flew up to heaven. Both events function in a changing-of-the guard kind of way, and through nature of comparison, the lives of Abrahams and Montague take on a prophetic quality. As prophets in their own way, Abrahams and Montague witness and testify to the power in running a straight race, a phrase we hear from Liddell in one of his sermons in the film. Liddell tells his audience of the similarities between running and faith, and we see these parallels lived in real time in the lives of Liddell, Abrahams, Lindsay and Montague. Each in his own way serves not only as an ambassador of England to the Paris Olympics, but also as a prophet of the truths of life as enacted in running.