![]() Unable to afford lift tickets, he switched to the cheaper sport of ski jumping. Within four years he was racing with the British national team. Eddie was a mere eaglet of 13 when he first strapped on skis during a school trip to Italy. He grew up in working-class Cheltenham, where his mother worked at an aluminum-door factory and his father, his father’s father and his father’s father’s father were all plasterers. The Eagle’s career was not an unfettered ascent, or, for that matter, descent. He also brought up the rear at 90 meters, though technically he aced out three jumpers who were scratched-one of whom, a Frenchman, failed to show because he had broken a leg on a practice run the day before. Of the 58 jumpers in the 70-meter event, he just missed being 59th. The Quintessential British Sportsman.Įdwards, after all, did what Englishmen do surpassingly well-coming in gloriously, irretrievably and spectacularly last. A Half-Blind Clot Having a Bloody Good Laugh. “Over the past 25 years, I’ve been called all sorts of things.” “Doesn’t matter,” says Edwards, smiling indulgently. I may have been the first ski jumper ever beaten by his gear.”Īn onlooker asks: “How do you like to be called? Eddie Edwards? Eddie the Eagle? Mr. “On one jump the string snapped, and my helmet carried on farther than I did. ![]() “When I started competing, I was so broke that I had to tie my helmet with a piece of string,” he says. He shields his eyes from the low, fierce English sun and holds forth on his brilliant career. On this particular afternoon, a crowd of roughly three has massed in the driveway of Edwards’ duplex, where the Eagle has donned old ski togs. When he touched down, broadcasters chorused: “The Eagle has landed!” By taking a huge leap of faith, Edwards captured the world’s imagination and achieved the sort of renown that can only come overnight. ![]() Wearing six pairs of socks inside hand-me-down ski boots, he stepped onto the slopes, pushed off down the steep ramp and rag-dolled through the air. Blinking myopically behind the bottle glass of his pink-and-white-rimmed glasses, he told the press: “In my case, there are only two kinds of hope-Bob Hope and no hope.” Short on talent but long on panache and derring-do, he had no illusions about his ability, no dreams of gold or silver or even bronze. A quarter century ago British plasterer-turned-ski jumper Michael Edwards made a name for himself-Eddie the Eagle-by not skiing or jumping very well at the Winter Olympics in Calgary.
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