Joy of Defeat: Eddie the Eagle Has Yet to Soar

I wasn’t going to bother with Eddie the Eagle. Really, I wasn’t. Eddie was a joke. Eddie was the fool on the hill. Eddie was a novelty act, a clown, come to this rodeo town for comic relief. He was not a great Olympian. He was a bad one, good mostly for a laugh.

Day by day, though, the Eddie the Eagle phenomenon took off. The worse he did, the better everyone liked it. He was the man who took the Great out of Britain. He was an ice guy who finished last. He was Eddie Edwards, worst ski jumper of the Winter Olympics, but somehow he had become the most popular snowman since Frosty.

Next thing I knew, Eddie was everywhere. Eddie on ABC. Eddie on BBC. Eddie on every TV, except maybe SCTV. Eddie on Page One of the Calgary paper, arm in arm with seven scantily clad chorus girls. An Eddie phonograph record, inspired by a song from the 1984 Summer Olympics. An Eddie calendar in the works, sponsored by a vodka company. An Eddie guest shot with Johnny Carson, according to Eddie’s people.

“One adviser guy reckoned I can make upwards of $250,000,” said Eddie, rather staggered by the whole thing.

All this for a clumsy, myopic, 24-year-old plasterer from Cheltenham, England, who placed 58th in the Olympic 70-meter ski jump only because there was no such place as 59th.

The big question in Calgary is not so much where the Eagle has landed, as it is whether the Eagle has landed. What goes up must, obviously, come down, but there is a sigh of relief at Olympic Park anytime Eddie doesn’t end up in the bushes, or head over heels, or in the equipment shed. With those glasses of his, the Eagle looks more like an owl, and blind as a bat.

You should have seen him when he first hit town. And, I do mean hit town. At the Calgary airport, Eddie was so astonished to find 10 members of the Official Eddie the Eagle Edwards Fan Club waiting for him with a giant banner that he juggled his luggage, whereupon all his shirts and shorts spilled out. A minute later, he got stuck in the doorway with his skis. The impact sent Eddie reeling backward, right into the baggage claim. Charlie Chaplin comes to Canada.

Little did he know what to expect next. There was no way of knowing, when he took up ski jumping as a lark on a visit to Lake Placid, N.Y., two years ago, that someday he would become Britain’s first Olympian in this event, let alone the single most popular figure of the 1988 Winter Games. So mobbed has Eddie Edwards been up here, he has gone into semi-seclusion. He’s not just Eddie anymore. He’s Elvis.

An announcement Friday that the men’s 90-meter ski jump, scheduled for today, has been postponed until Monday sorely disappointed weekend tourists who have to return home for school or work. A rumor that Eddie the Eagle might not compete at all--International Ski Federation officials might prevent him from jumping because of heavy winds--is worse news still. Eddie was so far behind everybody else in the 70, he was like Bruce Babbitt in New Hampshire. You could hardly find him.

Figuratively speaking, he has come a long way. When he started out, he paid $60 for a pair of used skis, borrowed a helmet that was fastened by a string, and borrowed boots that were so large, he had to wear six pairs of socks. Later, at a Boy Scout camp in Finland, Eddie chopped wood and washed dishes for room and board, just so he could use the nearby slopes.

“I was living on a loaf of bread a week,” he said. “If I saw any of the Scouts throwing food away, I grabbed it from him, quick.

“After that, I even went to live in a mental hospital for a while. It was so cheap--one pound a night. But, I was a bit wary of someone coming to my door in the middle of the night with an ax. I had a lot of sleepless nights in there.”

Eddie was a ski jump bum. He bopped from Germany to Austria to Switzerland. He chipped teeth, strained ligaments and broke his jaw by landing on his face. Since he couldn’t afford a doctor, he wrapped a scarf around his jaw and carried on.

Eventually, better ski jumpers took him in, like a stray. They gave him gear and advice. Before long, he had just about everything he needed, except for a pair of eyeglasses that wouldn’t fog up during takeoff.

“They clear up just enough for me to see where I’ll land,” Eddie said, “and on which part of my body.”

By the time Crazy Eddie got to Calgary, he was ready for anything. The same could not be said for his sweetheart, interior designer Hannah Gratton, 19, who covered her eyes while watching Eddie’s jumps, later saying: “My heart was in my mouth until he came down. I wanted him in one piece, not 20.”

The Eagle’s longest jump was more than 100 feet shorter than the winner’s, but at least he landed safely. “I always have to fight the fear that my next jump could be my last,” he said.

The crowd gave him a standing ovation. Eddie raised his skis in triumph.

He plodded into the lodge, to his locker, then discovered he had lost his key.

He found someone who had a master key, got his stuff out, then discovered he had missed his bus.

Good thing he didn’t win a medal, because he would have lost it.

Eddie the Eagle.

You know what an eagle is.

Sub-par.

“Why did you decide to become Great Britain’s first Olympic ski jumper?” someone asked.

“Well,” said Eddie the Eagle, “someone in Great Britain has to do it.”