An Evening with Eddie the Eagle
Last week, one of my networking groups (Professional Connections of Wiltshire) with a little help from me, organised an evening with Eddie the Eagle and it was a great success with over 80 business people in attendance.
During the evening, as well as listening to Eddie share his story about becoming Britain’s only athlete to enter the ski jumping competition in the Winter Olympics in Calgary 1988, there were lots of opportunities for networking.
A lot of planning went into the evening which I’ll be talking about in my next blog: Working with Celebrities.
Eddie’s story:
Eddie, whose real name is Michael, got the nickname of Ed, then Eddie, while still at school, due to his surname. He grew up in Cheltenham in a very ordinary, working class family, and started his working life as a plasterer, working in the building trade. He was a very sporty kid.
As a teenager he went to the Italian Dolomites ski-ing with the school, where he attempted his first ski jump and fell in love with it. He told his mates he was going to ski jump over the road, which was near the nursery slope. He did just that; skiing as fast as he could down the nursery slope, he took off and jumped across the road, landing in someone’s back garden.
At home he developed an obsession with ski-ing thanks to the Dry Ski Slope in Gloucester, and at one point was invited to join the British Slalom Ski team, but then sadly, he got kicked off the team because he didn’t have the appropriate Alpine ski racing kit. In other words, he simply didn’t fit in, in a sport which, at that time, was populated by people from much wealthier families.
His parents didn’t have the money to support him further, so he eventually decided to go to Lake Placid in the USA, to train. However, he hadn’t realised how expensive it was to train there either. He had a dream to compete at the Olympics and he was determined to find a way to do it.
Eddie found out that Britain had never entered Ski Jumping in the Olympics, so he decided that was what he would do. He started small training on jumps of ten, then 15, then 40 metre jumps, and managed those different heights in only three months.
Next, he borrowed his mum’s car, and drove to Switzerland. During this time, as his experience grew, he jumped 30, 60, then 90 metre jumps, although he was still using his very old equipment – that he’d found in a shed housing ski-ing equipment.
On one occasion he took off from the 90 metre jump, and doing 70 mph, there was so much force his helmet, which was tied on with string, fell off. He joked in his talk that he must be the first skier whose helmet beat its wearer’s jump record; he jumped 37 metres, his helmet managed 98!
Whilst training in Switzerland, the other ski squads who turned up for training, seeing how old his kit was, gave him replacements which were more modern. The Italian squad gave him a new helmet and goggles, the Austrians, new skis, West Germany gave him a new jump suit, the French gave him wax and the Swiss taught him what to do with the wax! Eddie joked that with all that help, he felt he could have been jumping for Europe, rather than GB.
Then he was invited to Finland by the Finnish team, and there he stayed in a psychiatric hospital for 5 weeks (that was being refurbished), though he slept in a padded cell. It was the only place he could stay which didn’t cost money. During this time, he got his letter to say he had been selected to compete at the Calgary Olympics.
Despite being, as he describes it, a ‘David amongst many Goliaths’, he had made his dream come true. He would be an Olympian and represent his country.
Compared to the other competitors, he started on the back foot. He didn’t have any updated equipment, he came from a country that didn’t have snow and he had only spent around 22 months learning to ski, whereas most competitors had been learning for about 20 years, since a very young age. Yet here he was.
Before leaving for Calgary, he was on the BBC’s Nine O’clock News. During the interview he mentioned how he had received no funding whatsoever, and how he was having to fund himself. He was sure that part of the interview would be edited out however it was not. The interview captured the public’s imagination and the BBC received thousands of pounds worth of cheques from people wanting to support him. This interview was sent to Canada, so by the time he arrived, he was famous.
On his arrival at the airport, there was a sign, welcoming Eddie the Eagle, and he asked who that was, not realising it was him. So, it was the Canadian fans who gave him his now famous name.
Eddie, who is very likeable, funny and self-effacing, still can’t quite believe some of the things that have happened to him. What he calls his ‘how did I get there’ moments.
- He was a pop star in Finland.
Everyone in Finland ski jumps, and a well-known songwriter in Finland, Irving Goodman, wrote a song about him. He invited Eddie to Finland to record two songs with him. However, shortly after he arrived in his Finnish hotel he received a phone call to say that the songwriter had suffered a heart attack that morning and died. Obviously, Eddie thought he’d be on the next flight home. Instead, they wrote out the Finnish words phonetically for him to learn, and he recorded the two songs, which were released as a memorial to the song writer. The A side, reached no. 2 in Finland, where he is known as a pop singer. To this day Eddie does not know what the words of the song mean!
- Clovelly, Devon
The town of Clovelly were opening a brand new tourist centre. They had this idea where Eddie, dressed as an eagle, would swoop in on a helicopter to open the centre.
It was all arranged and he was to fly from Swansea Airport. He arrived, and was given his outfit to change into and told they couldn’t get hold of an eagle outfit. So, when he landed at Clovelly, and leapt out of the helicopter, he was wearing a chicken outfit!
- Johnny Carson Show
In his time, Johnny Carson’s show had huge viewing figures. So, you can imagine how surprised Eddie, unknown from Cheltenham, was to find himself on the Johnny Carson Show in 1988, alongside Burt Reynolds, who was also one of the top film actors of the day. That was a definite, ‘how did I get here’ moment.
Since Calgary and his amazing feat, Eddie has done a lot of PR work, sharing his story around the world. He’s even had a film made about his life starring Hugh Jackman and Taron Egerton.
Calgary was 35 years ago, but to Eddie, it was and still is such a special moment; sitting on a bench, waiting for his turn to jump, with 82,000 people shouting out his name.
Ironically, the International Olympic Committee banned Eddie from competing again – they felt that someone who came last in a discipline should not receive more attention than those who won the medals. They instituted a rule, which requires Olympic hopefuls to compete in international events and be placed in the top 30% or the top 50 competitors. This has become known as the Eddie the Eagle rule. The establishment didn’t take kindly to an amateur being so successful for following his dream and doing his best.
Is this the Olympic ideal or ethos? To celebrate only the winners – or is it to celebrate all competitors with the talent, skill and determination to make it to this prestigious sporting competition. After all, it wasn’t Eddie’s fault that he was seen as such a ‘character’…
The more Eddie was told ‘no’, the more he was inspired to work at jumping. He said:
‘There is nothing I like better than proving everyone wrong!’
His final message was to hold on to your dream and to go for it, no matter what anyone says as you might just get there!
