Unlikely Heroes - Eddie the Eagle
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There were a few problems with his career though:
- He could not see fully - he had to wear googles to see where he was going (he was short sighted), but they misted up on the piste, so even when he jumped, he couldn't see where he was going.
- He was overweight - he was more than 9kg heavier than all of the other competitors in the world that were successful.
- He had a fear of heights.
He was the Number 1 in Britain though (admittedly a small talent pool), and travelled to the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary ranked a not uncreditable 55th in the world. However, Ski Jumping at the time had a lot of displacement between each position lower down the rankings, and not a lot of people took part in the competition.
He took part in the 70m and 90m events, but unfortunately, finished last in both of them. Here is one of his jumps...
However, he became rather like the Jamaican Bobsleigh team, in that he endeared himself to the global public. He released a book, a Top 50 song, promoted cars, and has recently become a sports agent, all off the back of this one jump. There will be an autobiographical film of him released in January 2008, potentially involving Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.
However, the sad conclusion, was that the IOC acted like the No Fun League. They thought that Eddie was making a mockery of their sport, and moved to stop further participation from him, and others, that were quirky but not up to scratch. If you remember the Simpsons episode about the Stonecutters, whereby Homer gets abandoned and they all leave and set up the "No Homers" Club, the IOC set up the "Eddie the Eagle" rule, which basically did the same thing. He attempted to qualify for future Olympic Games, but could not meet the requirements, stating he needed to come in the top 50 competitors, or top 30% of the field. Unable to get funding to do this, Eddie was unable to retire.
So that is Eddie the Eagle. I think it's sad that you give Ed Belfour this tag. So he may be similarly insane in appearance, but I think that something else should be come up with. If you speak to anyone in England about Eddie Edwards, they'd be confused. Ask them about Eddie the Eagle, they'd know instantaneously. So in my opinion, the nickname of Belfour is erroneous.
This article was inspired by "Eddie The Eagle Flies to Sweden?", posted earlier.
