By Donna Richardson and Jasmine Laws

Many look at Olympic athletes and feel that they could never be like them. To be an Olympic athlete one has to go above and beyond what the human body is capable of, placing them on an unattainable pedestal to ordinary people like ourselves. However, Michael Edwards, ‘Eddie the Eagle’ proved this wrong. Despite breaking many bones, including fracturing his skull twice, and self-funding his entire training, Eddie’s ability to overcome challenges, his relentless motivation and ceaseless spirit saw him become an overnight sensation, as the first competitor to represent Great Britain in Olympic ski jumping at The Calgary Games in 1988. He courageously proved that anyone can compete – it just requires hard work and an endless supply of passion and optimism. Despite finishing last, this unlikely but courageous British ski-jumper never stopped believing in himself. On meeting Eddie, Ski Luxe discovered him to be a most humble and considerate individual, full of stories and a true icon in every sense of the word.

Born in Cheltenham, Eddie was the UK’s first jumper since 1928 and held the British record at 71m for jumping from 1988 to 2001, and he has become a true British legend. His legacy was declared the moment the President of the Games recognised his achievement by saying, “some competitors have won gold, some have broken records, and some of you have even soared like an eagle”. Starting on a local dry slope, to competing around the UK and racing internationally, his story was so remarkable that it was turned into the 2016 film Eddie the Eagle featuring Taron Egerton and Hugh Jackman. Sleeping in his car, cowsheds, barns and having to scavenge food, his drive makes him one of the most admirable competitors and a true Olympian. Eddie describes how he “represented this tiny little country against the Goliath nations of ski jumping”, showing that motivation and passion “are what the Olympics are all about”.

Eddie also spent time passing on his talent as a ski instructor, but quickly came to prioritise his family, and now no longer coaches. However, even though his main ski jumping days are behind him, his love of the sport is still strong, as he says, “if I’ve got skis on, then I’m happy”. He believes that skiing should be accessible to everybody, not priced so that ordinary people cannot participate. Rather like Disney’s Ratatouille and the slogan that ‘anyone can cook’, Eddie firmly stands that “anyone can ski”. It simply requires an unconditional passion for the sport. “I was prepared to do anything so long as I could carry on skiing and ski jumping even if that meant scraping food out of bins and sleeping in the car or a cowshed or getting a job in a hotel washing up scrubbing floors, waiting tables, shovelling snow, cutting grass, doing whatever: if it meant that I could stay out there and carry on doing what I love, I was prepared to do it.”

After seeing the athletes of Great Britain in their tracksuits walking with their heads held high on World of Sports on a Saturday morning, Eddie declared “I want to wear one too”. When he was 13 on a school ski trip, he discovered his love for the sport. From then on, every free moment he had was spent at a ski centre, ten miles away from his parent’s house: “it became my second home. I was there every night after school, all weekend and all school holidays”. Eddie’s discipline and hard work was partially influenced by his admiration for the Finnish ski jumping sensation Matti Nykanen who won gold at the Calgary games: “He dominated the sport. I used to stop whatever I was doing to watch him jump. I would take video clips and copy him.”

He managed to get a job at Gloucester ski centre in ski hire to fund his ski training: “I would work a couple of hours on a Saturday morning and spend the rest of the weekend skiing. For me that was a good deal: I would do two hours of work to get 24 hours of skiing.” Throughout his journey to fame, Eddie juggled training with jobs for funding and to simply have enough food to get by. His dad Terry once told him that if he ever found himself travelling, he should always make friends with a chef to never go hungry, which turned out to be true, as he describes how “when I was in Kandersteg, I went to one of the hotels to ask them if I could do some work for them. I used to cut the grass for them, and they would give me a meal. If they saw me walking past on my way to jump, they’d invite me in for lunch or for dinner.”

After progressing up the standards of jumps, having worked with 25 different coaches, he competed in his first European Cup in 1986. A week later, his first World Cup allowed him to qualify for the World Championships, setting him up for qualification in the Calgary Olympics in 1988. His plan was to get some attention from UK Press when competing to attract sponsorship and then aim to go for the ’90, ’94, ’98, 2002 and 2006 Olympics. For Eddie, just getting to the Olympic Games was his “gold medal”, as he wanted to show the world he was a good ski jumper. He explained how he wasn’t told he was going to the Olympics until four weeks before. They allowed him to go because he reached the qualification at least three times, and on the fourth, he was half a metre away. “When I heard the news, I was staying in a psychiatric hospital in Finland, simply because it had the cheapest rooms. I flew back, grabbed my Olympic uniform, travelled to Steamboat Springs in Colorado to train with the American team, then straight to Calgary for the Olympics.” Despite finishing last, scoring 69.2 points with two jumps of 71m, he had so much success in captivating everyone’s attention that he got more attention than the winner. Even to this day, the sound of the crowd rings in his ears, as he recalls: “when I ski jumped in Calgary, 82,000 people in the stadium all shouted Eddie, Eddie, Eddie! It was an incredible experience.”

As soon as he was christened ‘Eddie the Eagle’, he was flooded with media teams wanting to do interviews. He even got a phone call from Johnny Carson who invited him down to LA to appear on his show alongside Burt Reynolds. After claiming the title ‘Eddie the Eagle’, everything became a blur of offers, conferences and interviews: “Nobody really knew who I was. Some might have seen me on Ski Sunday, the year before but not many. Ten days later, I went on the show alongside Burt Reynolds. It just exploded. From then on, my feet didn’t touch the ground.”

While buzzing with the knowledge he had accomplished what he had always dreamed of, this sudden influx of attention worldwide was difficult at times. “The moment I stepped outside the front door of the Athletes Village; I would get mobbed by media.  If I wanted to head to a little ski jump that I found in Banff, I would put a blanket over me and lie down on the backseat of a car and be driven out the back door where people wouldn’t see me so I could ski jump.” For Eddie, fame has been exciting, but it is a full-time job: “it’s not a tap that you can turn on and off.” He continues to be baffled that even today, 34 years later, people are still speaking about the Calgary games, and he has “probably told the story about half a million times.”

When it comes to ski jumping body shape is important. Being tall and light was the desired body type for jumping, allowing you to have longer skis that will carry you further. Eddie even recalled how 34 years ago when he was competing, eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia were rife in the sport. This led to the International Ski Federation introducing a minimum weight, to try to reduce the risks involved with extreme weight management. However, Eddie argues that for him, being ten kilos heavier than everybody else didn’t really make that much difference, as it was all about the technique: “you could be the most powerful, springiest jumper but unless you do it in a certain way, all that power goes nowhere.” Eddie mimicked the plyometrics of jumping in the gym, by working the muscles needed to complete the jump, and he even practised his interim and flight positions by jumping off a diving board into the swimming pool and even off the roof onto a mattress.

While, a lot of people think that Eddie was reckless, he corrects that he is actually very risk averse. Despite appearances, of launching himself off the roof onto a mattress, he reminds us that he thinks of every single conceivable thing that could go wrong and ensures that he has a plan in place to mitigate the consequences if anything does go wrong. So, even though he has broken a few bones, he quickly learnt from mistakes, and explains how it was the fact that he was always a little scared when jumping that forced him into concentration. These nerves however did nothing to lessen his motivation and drive: “I was never too scared that I wouldn’t do it. When you’re doing a sport that carries risk, it’s very easy to sit within that comfort zone but I was never like that, I wanted to keep pushing.”

The importance of technique is undeniable – someone’s next jump could be their last if they don’t get the sequence right at the take-off. When coming down from the jump, you’ve got to keep the position throughout take-off and stay right over your skis, and this can be terrifying. Eddie described how “it would be a battle between me and the ski jump, but I was going to make sure the ski jump wasn’t going to win. It’s frightening to take off at 70 miles an hour and suddenly be 300 feet above where you’re going to land laying out over your skis. If you get any part of that sequence wrong instead of laying it over your skis, you’ll be somersaulting.”

Although, despite the initial fear of taking off during the jump, Eddie does not deny how much he loves it. “I kept daring myself and managed 30,000 jumps. I fell over about 80 times but injured myself on only six occasions – one injury every 5000 jumps.” While his injuries were rather serious, such as a fractured skull, broken jaw, collarbone and ribs, this demonstrates how Eddie’s relentless motivation, and ceaseless love for the sport pushed him over those 30,000 jumps, and was his ticket to the Calgary Olympics.t seems clear that the secret to Eddie’s success is his motivation and passion, as this overrode everything – any fear, any setback was overcome by his relentlessly hard work and unconditional love of the sport. Eddie talks at schools to remind children that “if you want it bad enough, you will do it. If you love your sport, you will always find a way to do it”. Perhaps, in light of this, it is time to see the Olympic games as a celebration of global love for sport, rather than only prestige and wealth within the sporting industry.