91Èȱ¬

So how come it took a correspondent in Germany to alert someone in Britain about about a 'British' story?

Let's put it another way:

You claim you broke the story.
The Daily Mail probably think they broke the story.
The correspondent in Germany probably thinks he or she broke the story.

I bet at least one other person "broke the story" to the correspondent in Germany.

Good Blog Adrian.
I remember Eddies exploits at the time when he competed in 1988 even though I was only young at the time.
To most of us watching telly in those days, the ski jump was like launching yourself off the end of a cliff an way into the abyss. It would have taken a fair amount of 'bottle' to carry out a jump and to imagine that his glasses steamed up half way down only to clear again mid flight, well one can only take hios hat off to the guy, regardless of the quality of his performance. I expect that this was partly the reason why so many people took an interest and liked Eddie the Eagle as what he lacked in quality, he made up for with courage.
He also brought a bit of much needed fun.

In the same boat as Finlays-da. I was young at the time but remember seeing him all over the place and is still the most famous British winter sportsman we have probably ever had. I am a very keen skier and boarder and used to race slalom on the dry ski slopes, etc, and have watched all the winter Olympics whilst since I have been old enough to. However, there are only really 3 big moments that I can instantly remember from these games and 2 of them involve 'novices'....Eddie the Eagle jumping about 30m less than everyone else; this Taiwanese (?) skier doing the GS in a snowplough and Bell and co for the 91Èȱ¬ not being able to stop laughing (in a good way, it was so funny....the guy fell over at one point, missed a gate and lost his ski, but fetched his ski, ran back up the slope put it on and carried down the slope as before....amazing); and the Herminator (1998) flying through the air and cartwheeeling through the orange safety nets in a crash that looked like it would kill most people (he got up and won a few gold medals later in the week). Point is, for a lot of the world that don't thrive in winter sports (i.e. the majority) it is things like this that give the games the publicity it needs and hoprfully gets people interested. Shame that it is likely we will observe many less memorable moments that capture the wider sporting publics attention.

Edit my above comment: the Taiwanese incident was in the 2001 World Championships not Olympics.....this is a 91Èȱ¬ link

As a Brit living in Calgary for the last 10 years, I can tell you the only Olympian remembered here from the 1988 games is Eddie The Eagle, and that includes the Canadian medal winners! Yesterday the newscasters here were remembering him with great fondness as he carryied the Olympic torch in Winnipeg. He returned to Calgary 2 years ago to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his exploits, and was met with rapturous applause. Quite a legend in these parts.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Eddie Edwards made Ski Sunday in 87/88. Sure he came last every week, but he was improving and breaking the British Ski Jumping record nearly every week, when not in a Mental hospital, recovering from injuries!

Sure it helped him that he was the only Brit, and of course style counts as well as length in the sport, but still it would be nice to thing Eddie still is our finest Ski Jumper ever!

Thank you for the reply Adrian, and yes, I am interested.
Sometimes the way a story is reported can be as interesting as the story itself.
When it is (sometimes) obvious that a story might have been recycled from a primary source (such as Reuters), then I like to see what different spins are put on it around the world.

I enjoyed seeing that The Eagle had landed as much as I enjoyed seeing that he ever managed to get airborne.
I've been terrified just by looking down a ski-jump in summer.

The question you pose is also interesting, and provokes others in my mind.
What was the real reason why the rules were changed afterwards ?
Would they have done so if Eddie hadn't received so much publicity for being rubbish ?
Why shouldn't Eddie have had that opportunity (just as Leeds got their opportunity to play Manchester United in the FA Cup!) ?

My opinion is that the IOC, and some individuals, are terrified of their games being portrayed as "Jeux-Sans-Frontieres" style entertainment.
If people began to think that maybe the "Olympic Emperor" has no clothes, then this corporate-welfare program might be reined-in, to the benefit of tax-payers.

I think I've said about as much as I can without being moderated, Adrian, but you did ask.

actually there was once another sportsman who became famous but was usually last: the Swiss speed-skater Franz Krienbuhl. He didnt start competitive skating until age 30-something and kept it up till age 48.He had a peculiar style but persistently broke world records... unfortunately always those from about 5 years or so ago (while the rest of the field had moved on)thanks to technical improvements to his equipment, especially after he "invented" the one-piece slinky skating suit which was first laughed at but soon adopted by everybody else as they realized it did increase speed. He also tinkered with skates, improved his times in doing so time and time again and his improvements were adopted all round each time. How a true amateur improved and contributed a sport! Unfortunately impossible these days.

Perhaps it's an overly romantic notion, but isn't the Olympics about the best from each country competing against each other - in the words of Jesse Owens, breaking bread with the rest of the world. It's shameful that Eddie, who was the best in Britain, was effectively prohibited from competing by governing bodies reacting to the sniffy attitude of medallists who felt they were being pushed out of the limelight. Perhaps they had reason, then again, Eddie did more to promote their sport than anyone before or since, however inadvertent was his rise to fame.

I was fortunate to get to know Eddie a little when I was starting in journalism in Cheltenham 7 or 8 years after Calgary. Yes, he was (probably still is) slightly eccentric. I also found him modest, brave and always positive - an archetypal Olympian in many ways.

The Winter Olympics?

After having been on this planet for nearly 40 years I can only name three people from it.

1. Franz Klammer
2. That Jamaican bobsleigh team and
3. Eddie the Eagle

The rest is all too boringly samey.

Hi Adrian, please can you clarify how good or bad was Eddie?
From a hazy recollection, I thought he was good enough to compete at the second tier, but was hampered by poor kit and facilities and was plain too heavy to compete against the best Finns.
But he wasn't an 'Eric the Eel', who would have been beaten by most 12 year olds at your local swimming club.

p.s. Midland20, perhaps Torvill & Dean, John Curry, Robin Cousins, Alan Baxter or Rhona Martin might jog your memory. You could hardly accuse Alex Coomber or Shelley Rudman in the skeleton bob of being boringly samey.

I wonder if it was an advantage or a disadvantage that Eddie's glasses would steam up on the runway? Even as a teenager i remember thinking : this is taking the mick but its kind of sad, from the viewpoint of entertainment, that the IOC dont allow people like Eddie any more

We'll get good at these sports when the Globl Warming Hypothesis is proven wrong, an Ice Age kicks in and the arctic circle encompasses Birmingham.

ie never

But what England can contribute is personality, and on that score Im worried. There should be a medal for "humorous eccentricity" in the past we'd have won it every time. Except the year of the Jamican bobseligh team. Not any more though. How boring are modern sportsmen. And the women are even worse. Boring!

As the end of the earth approaches, with the various climate and personal effects of Modern Mass Culture, the national sport of every nation is self-destruction and we need Eddie the Eagles to entertain us as we take our own fogged-up-spec journey down the ski slope to oblivion.

Eddie did wonders for the publicity of winter sports in the UK. It also showed how much skill and dedication it takes to get to succeed at winter sport.

We in the UK are so niave to sports we aren't competitive in and therefore think it must be unimportant. It is realistic to be able to say whether a child at the age of 12 will have a chance to make it on the FIS Alpine World Cup. Think how much training goes and cost has gone into this over the 7 years from their first time.

I compare this to most summer olympic sports where people don't train seriously till their teens and have more funding.

To me anything that helps promote some of the most dedicated sportsmen and sportswomen in the world is a benefit. The more people that see athletes like Bode Miller, Lindsey Vonn, Simon Amman, Ole-Einner BjornDhalin etc. All of whom are as good as any rower, athlete or heaven forbid footballer.

Jim - I agree its always satisfying the best sportsmen/women in whatever sport.

The Austrians/Russians/Swiis have an unfair advantage of course. Our idea of winter sports is stay indoors and play darts. We need an Indoor OLympics - we'd thrash everyone. Phil the Power is without question the world's greatest sportman, even though he smokes and has a great love of pies.

Can't see our chances improving in the Winter Olympics until there's some kind of business interest. Pro football clubs are actively involved in identifying and training best kids from the age of 8. Did you ever see how Eddie trained in his back garden on his tragi-comic DIY heath robertson contraption? This is how he toned up

No chance for any money from govt for the foreseeable.

Adrian - Great blog, I remember the story well. I've heard a story about a skier from Ghana who calls himself the snow leopard. Do you think he'll be the "eddie the eagle" of the 2010 Winter Olympics?

Surely the greatest performance by a UK skier in the Olympics has got to that of Alain Baxter with a Bronze medal at Salt Lake City.

Given that he skis a technical discipline and despite the controversy over his nasal spray, he was well respected by the more established skiing nation's and his talent is the best the UK has ever produced.

It was even reported that the venerable Austrian Beni Raich who benefitted from Alain's DQ handed him the medal anyway?

The Midland 20, with out meaning to be rude i do not think you have a clue what you are talking. How some of the most dangerous, highest speed competitions in the world can be described as 'boringly samey' i do not know. What i do know though is that for example, Skiing is one of the most innovative sports around, making use of new technology and techniques as well as being the most technically and physically demanding sports there is. Couple that with skiers flying down a hill at 80mph, or jumping for nearly 200m i would rather watch this any day than whatever sport you would rather watch

Some of the comments here are a bit sad. If you spent a year or so in any Alpine or Nordic country you'd realise just how much winter sports means to those nations. Their ski jumpers and skiers, both Alpine and cross-country, are as big as Wayne Rooney here. A bit less well paid, but just as famous.......

Franz Klammer was reckoned to add 50,000 to the audience at Schladming in 1982 for the world championship downhill. If you saw him blast his way down the Hahnenkamm the following year, blowing the field away like Tiger Woods has done sometimes at golf, you'd understand why.....

You go to Garmisch, Bischofshofen, Oberstdorf or Innsbruck around New Year and you'd find crowds to match those at Premier League football. What are they watching? Ski jumping. And that's forgetting Norway, where it's the national sport......

Don't knock sports we're not good at due to geographical factors.

Or you might find the world telling us to screw our EPL worldwide media deals as a result.......