John Keddie, who has written a new biography of the Scot, believes there might be a case for calling Liddell China’s first Olympic champion even though he ran for Britain when he won 400 metres gold at the Paris Olympics.

He was born in China, he died in China, he helped the Chinese people and he had a great love for China, it really was his frame of reference in his life, he said.

These things endear him to the Chinese even though in principle there is a hesitancy about making a hero of someone who was a Christian missionary. That hesitancy reflects bitterness over the role of missionaries, who were often seen by many Chinese and by Western officials as harbingers of colonial control throughout the 19th and first half of the 20th century.

As a church minister and an authority on Scottish athletics, Keddie himself was used as a reference-point for the character of Liddell by the screenwriter of the Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire.

The film told how Liddell, Scotland’s finest sprinter, skipped his favoured 100 m because his religious convictions forbade him from running on a Sunday. Rather than not compete at all, Liddell elected to take part in the 200, where he won bronze, and, famously, the 400.

Despite having virtually no experience of running the longer race before the start of 1924, he hurtled his way around the track with his head back and arms flailing to win by four metres in a record time of 47.6 seconds.

The reason for that was Liddell’s great commitment to his faith, which led him to turn his back on fame and fortune and return to China as a missionary a year after his Paris triumph.

He continued to race in China and helped establish a facility in Tianjin modelled on his favourite running track at Stamford Bridge in London.

After the Japanese invasion of the late 1930s, he worked tirelessly to help the people of China, Keddie said, staying on even after Japan went to war with Britain in 1941.