Eddie Edwards

Michael Thomas “Eddie” Edwards, a plasterer from Cheltenham with poor eyesight, went to the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics as the best British ski jumper. With no chance of a medal, he arrived at Calgary Airport to be greeted by a group of fans carrying a banner saying: “Welcome to Calgary, Eddie The Eagle”, and that nickname stuck. He came as a no-hoper and left Calgary as a worldwide hero. From that you would think he came away from the Games as a surprise medalist. None of it; despite setting British records in both the Normal and Large Hill events, he came last in both. What Edwards did, however, was exemplify the spirit of the Olympic movement in an era when winning was important. He actually asked the question at those Games: “Where is it written that Olympics are only for winners?”

Edwards started skiing at the age of 13 after a failed footballing career. As a decent downhiller, he had visions of getting on to the British skiing team, but when that failed he turned to ski jumping, financing himself along the way. He got his big break in 1987 when he was living and working in Finland and was invited to go to the World Skiing Championships in Oberstdorf, West Germany, having taken part in a World Cup event in the same town seven weeks earlier. Edwards then went to the Calgary Olympics the following year with four other World Cup performances behind him, but his run of failure continued. Edwards, however, would turn that failure into success.

After the Calgary Olympics, Edwards was in demand for television, and public appearances, and once appeared on the Johnny Carson Show in the United States. Edwards suddenly went from being a £5,000-a-year plasterer, to a £10,000-an-hour speaker, and in the three years after his Calgary exploits, he was reputed to have earned £1 million. Sadly, financial mismanagement resulted him subsequently filing for bankruptcy.

Edwards continued training, but in 1990 stricter qualification rules were imposed and they made it virtually impossible for Edwards to qualify for major international events, and when the IOC implemented the “Eddie the Eagle Rule”, any chance of him competing at the 1992 Winer Olympics were gone. To make matters worse, Edwards lost his “British No.1” ranking in 1993 when James Lambert took it off him. Four years later at Lake Placid, however, Edwards did enjoy one of the best results of his career when he finished 36th out of 44.

Edwards was trying to rebuild a career for himself and studied to be a solicitor. At the age of 36 he secured a place at Leicester University to study law, and four years later graduated with a degree in law. While studying, he continued to run a ski training school and a PR company.

Between 2014-17 he was part of the Channel 4 winter sports TV programme “The Jump”, and in 2016 the full-length feature film “Eddie the Eagle” was released. It starred Taron Egerton as Edwards, and also featuring Hugh Jackman and Jim Broadbent. It grossed around $16 million, a long way short of the $149.9 million grossed by “Cool Runnings”, the film about the Jamaican bobsleigh team, also at the 1988 Calgary Olympics.

Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards was the first British ski jumper to ever compete at the Olympics. He was nowhere near to winning a medal, but he did become an Olympic and sporting icon.