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EDDIE THE EAGLE – Matthew Margeson
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The 1988 Winter Olympics are the first ones I remember consciously watching. Four years after Torvill and Dean stunned the world in Sarajevo, Calgary’s snowy spectacle gave us indelible memories of the Jamaican bobsled team, Katarina Witt and the Battle of the Brians on the skating rink, the all-conquering Alberto Tomba “La Bomba” on the ski slopes, and of course Eddie the Eagle. Michael “Eddie” Edwards was a fairly decent downhill skier, but it was his efforts in ski jumping that brought him to the attention of the world; despite a desperate lack of funds, terrible nearsightedness which forced him to wear thick bottle-bottom glasses when he jumped, and the disapproval of the sport’s governing body, Edwards took part anyway, competing as the only British ski jumper at the games. He finished dead last in his two events, a significant distance behind the athletes who finished second last – Bernat Sola of Spain, and Todd Gillman of Canada, for trivia fans – both of whom had more than double his score. In most other countries, Edwards would not have been a sports star, but the British love a plucky loser almost as much as they love a world champion winner, and so he was taken to their hearts, and for a brief time became a genuine celebrity, a true example of the Olympic ethos that it is not the winning, but the taking part, that counts. Read more…
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