Eddie 'the Eagle' Edwards: where is the British ski jumper now?
The bespectacled Brit exploded onto the scene at the 1988 Calgary Olympic Winter Games with his plucky against-all-odds story which was turned into a feature film. But what happened next? Put it this way, his life continues to be full of surprises.
Ski Jumping
If you’ve ever wondered how Eddie ‘the Eagle’ Edwards has been getting on since bursting onto the winter sports scene at Calgary 1988 – becoming the first Briton to compete in ski jumping at an Olympic Winter Games – ponder no more.
A photo of Edwards at a film premiere alongside movie stars Hugh Jackman and Taron Egerton in 2016 should give an indication that the now 59-year-old’s life continues to be somewhat unusual.
The premiere he attended, for example, was for a film about him. Eddie the Eagle, a feel-good movie, details the culmination of the bespectacled Brit’s Olympic dream, which, as you may recall, goes something like this.
Last but not least
Michael Edwards, yes, that’s his actual name, made history on a day traditionally seeped in romance, 14 February, to become the first athlete from Great Britain to partake in ski jumping at an Olympic Games.
Taking to the skies on borrowed skis, Edwards proceeded to come last in both individual disciplines in which he competed.
In the men's Normal Hill, Edwards scored 69.2 points from two jumps of 55m. The second-last finisher, Bernat Sola-Pujol of Spain, scored 140.4 points from 71m and 68.5m jumps, respectively.
The tally for the winner, Olympic legend Matti Nykanen, was 299.1 points from two jumps of 89.5m. The Finn also topped the table after the Large Hill event on 23 February, with Edwards again propping up the table at competition's end.
However, that wasn’t the point.
It was Edwards’ back story and character that endeared him to the sporting world and beyond.
Eddie 'the Eagle' Edwards' Cinderella story
Edwards had made it to Calgary despite limited resources. All money made from his plastering job was ploughed into chasing his Olympic dream. With no external funding, money-saving scenarios such as sleeping in cars, barns, and even, temporarily, a disused hospital in Finland, added to his lore.
A lack of equipment led to borrowing items such as ski boots, which required wearing six pairs of socks to fill the too-big footwear. No nutritionists for Edwards, he’d eat food out of bins or just staples such as bread.
Add Edwards’ signature ‘look’ of thick-lensed glasses, which would steam up in the altitude of the mountains, and perch under additional vision-diminishing pink-rimmed ski goggles, and you have quite the character.
Waving wildly to the huge crowd seconds before jumping from the 70m or 90m-long slopes engaged fans on site, while a beaming smile and looking directly into TV cameras on landing safely, enamoured the increasing numbers of viewers at home and around the world.
The good-natured man with a self-deprecating personality – “I'd like to say I flew like an eagle, but I was probably closer to the ostrich," he told one newspaper – was even mentioned in the closing ceremony speech:
“At these Games, some competitors have won gold, some have broken records and some of you have even soared like an eagle,” said Frank King, the head of Calgary's organising committee.
Edwards had forever made his mark.
READ: Olympic Cinderellas – How a British plasterer became ski jumping legend Eddie the Eagle
Eddie the Eagle: what happened next?
Post Games, Edwards' Olympic journey continued.
Benefiting commercially from his experience he told a financial website that he had twice earned £65,000 for a day's work (worth around $100,000 US at the time). “The first was when I sold my life story to a national newspaper at the Winter Olympics, Calgary, in 1988. Then about a month later, in a single day, I opened a ride at (UK theme park) Alton Towers, filmed a commercial and did other promotional work.”
But income was erratic. Cementing his down-to-earth persona, Edwards revealed: “Once I was making £10,000 for an hour's work but there have been years where my promotional stuff has brought in only a few hundred. I'm not daft. I always say my first job is my building trade. The rest comes and goes.”
The money didn't last. In 1992 Edwards entered involuntary bankruptcy due to an unpaid tax bill, which he attributed to mismanagement of those who ran a trust fund on his behalf. He sued the trustees for negligence and an out-of-court settlement was agreed. His interest in legal issues piqued, Edwards went on to gain a law degree a decade later.
In 2008, almost 10 years to the day of his first jump, Edwards returned to Calgary to mark the 20th anniversary of the Games, riding a zipline at the Canada Olympic Park with a member of the Jamaican bobsled team, the Caribbean 'Cool Runnings' sliders another iconic sporting moment of the Calgary Games.
Immortalised in film
The legend of Eddie the Eagle reached a far wider audience in 2015, when the movie of his career hit the big time.
Featuring Taron Egerton as Edwards and Hugh Jackman and Christopher Walken as fictional coaches, the movie immortalised the British ski jumper's story for future generations.
“It’s about 80% true and I think they did an excellent job with the film,” Eddie said.
“It brings a tear to my eye every time I watch it.”
Opportunity knocks
The worst two years of his life is how he describes 2014-16 as it was during this period he divorced his wife of 13 years, with whom he has two daughters. The financial impact was considerable. “Most of the money I have made from the movie has gone on that,” he said.
A plethora of other projects include a book called On the Piste: Stories and Tales from the Slopes, and a pop song sung in Finnish entitled "Mun nimeni on Eetu" that reached number two in the nation's charts.
Reality show appearances on British TV include a charity dance-off on the BBC and Edwards won the first series of celebrity diving programme Splash!, mentored by Olympic gold medallist Tom Daley.
He commentated on the The Jump, in which 12 famous people took part in winter sports, and in 2021, appeared on the UK version of The Masked Dancer as Rubber Chicken. Presumably the producers didn’t have an eagle costume to hand.
So, the end of Calgary was definitely not the end of the longed-for Olympic experience for Edwards; the Games have become a thread throughout his life.
Turning up in Canada as Michael Edwards and leaving as Eddie the Eagle, the Brit has made the most of every opportunity since.
"When I got to Calgary there were these signs up saying, 'Welcome to Calgary, Eddie the Eagle'. I said 'Who’s that?' And they said: 'That’s you!' And it went from there…”