I want to fly like an eagle, to...a telemark landing?

March 31, 2016 3:45 PM

British ski jumper Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards famously placed last in both the 70m and 90m ski-jumping events at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, despite setting one British ski-jumping record, and becoming a crowd favourite. He's now the subject of the recently-released biopic, Eddie the Eagle (trailer here).

In 2007, Steve Coogan was initially given the role of Edwards, but Taron Egerton would ultimately end up playing him in the film. Edwards has said that Coogan would have been too “Alan Partridge” in the role.

The Eddie the Eagle soundtrack is mainly comprised of songs composed for the film.

Gary Barlow, who created ‘Fly’ – an imaginary Eighties soundtrack for the ‘Eddie the Eagle’ biopic – meets the film’s subject for the first time

Smithsonian Magazine (2014): Whatever Happened to Eddie the Eagle, Britain’s Most Lovable Ski Jumper?

Guardian interview (March 2016): Eddie the Eagle: ‘I was probably closer to an ostrich’.

Eddie the Eagle: 'I was exemplifying the Olympic spirit' – video interview.

How accurate is Eddie the Eagle?

The jumping technique in the film was “pretty accurate,” [...] with one exception: every competitor in the film, including Matti Nykänen, a real-life ski-jumping legend known as “the Flying Finn,” soared with his skis wedged in a V. This is how the best jumpers in the world fly, but the technique wasn’t introduced until 1991—three years after the Calgary Olympics.

Footage of Nykänen jumping in the large (90m) hill event at the Calgary Winter Olympics.

Long after his stellar ski-jumping career came to a close, Nykänen would go on to lead a very troubled life, which includes spending time in jail for assaulting his estranged wife. He was himself the subject of a film in 2006, Matti: Hell Is for Heroes.

posted by mandolin conspiracy (22 comments total)

I would have gone with myopic instead of biopic.
posted by srboisvert at 3:48 PM on March 31, 2016 [5 favorites]

Directed by none other than Spike Thompson too!
posted by runincircles at 3:51 PM on March 31, 2016

My favorite Eddie trivia is that Eddie and Matti both recorded Finnish-language pop songs.
posted by librarina at 3:52 PM on March 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

On general principle, lemme mention Werner Herzog's 'The Great Ecstasy of the Woodcarver Steiner', YTlink, concerning an earlier jumper. One of my favorite Herzog films, short or otherwise.
posted by mr. digits at 3:54 PM on March 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

OK, now next we do the movie about Eric Moussambani and Paula Barila Bolopa, right?
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:56 PM on March 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

How accurate is Eddie the Eagle?

According to the linked article:

For those unfamiliar with Edwards’ story, he was a plasterer from a city west of Oxford who took up ski jumping in the hope that it might earn him a trip to the 1988 Olympics in Calgary, Alberta.

But according to wikipedia:

A good downhill skier, he narrowly missed the Great Britain team for that event for the 1984 Games.

and:

He first represented Great Britain at the 1987 World Championships and was ranked 55th in the world.

A good downhill skier, managed to rank 55th in the world in Ski Jump.. I'd say not accurate at all maybe? Like sure, Eddie's story is fun and interesting, but.. He was actually an athlete, like for reals.

On a tangential note, that crowd at the '88 Olympics Ski Jump looks enormous! Compare that to Vancouver.
posted by Chuckles at 4:22 PM on March 31, 2016

the technique wasn’t introduced until 1991

Umm, that's not at all correct -- here's a clip from Calgary where Swedish jumper Jan Boklöv uses his newfangled V-style, independently invented after he messed up during training a few years earlier and to his surprise found himself flying 20 meters longer than expected (others had experimented with it earlier, but he was the first to crunch the numbers and decide to go for distance over tradition).

A few weeks after Calgary, Nykänen and Boklöv ended up fighting it out in Lahti, Finland, where the latter (jumping first in that clip) consistently jumped longer than Nykänen, but got penalized by the judges. That would be one of Nykänen's last major wins; he never adjusted to the new style, and as everyone else switched over the next few years, he ended up hopelessly behind.
posted by effbot at 4:30 PM on March 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

Cool Runnings is still the best 1988 Winter Olympics movie.
posted by Space Coyote at 4:35 PM on March 31, 2016 [4 favorites]

Yet the wheels were in motion within the IOC to make sure that athletes like Edwards did not get the opportunity to take part in the Olympics in future; in 1990 the Eddie the Eagle Rule was established, meaning an athlete had to be in the top 30 per cent of international competitors, or the top 50, whichever was fewer. Edwards would never again compete at an Olympic Games.

The IOC, yet again demonstrating that they are a bunch of assholes. Nevermind that he was the best British ski jumper (even if he was the only one), or that he still ranked 55th in the world, better make sure that someone from outside the inner circle can't compete.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 4:46 PM on March 31, 2016 [9 favorites]

from the Smithsonian article:

“To me, competing was all that mattered. Americans are very much ‘Win! Win! Win!’ In England, we don’t give a fig whether you win. It’s great if you do, but we appreciate those who don’t. The failures are the people who never get off their bums. Anyone who has a go is a success.”

That's pretty much exactly how I remember him being seen in Britain at the time: of course he wasn't going to win, but he was going out there to have a go anyway. He could easily have become simply, and only, a figure of fun. But there was a determination to try, to do this thing that would terrify the rest of us, that made him also admirable.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 4:48 PM on March 31, 2016 [5 favorites]

That's pretty much exactly how I remember him being seen in Britain at the time: of course he wasn't going to win, but he was going out there to have a go anyway. He could easily have become simply, and only, a figure of fun. But there was a determination to try, to do this thing that would terrify the rest of us, that made him also admirable.

Part of the reason I made this post was that the Calgary Olympics got huge press here in Canada at the time, and lots of Canadians really remember Edwards. I think it's interesting that the first place finisher and last place finisher in the same event ended up in rather different places almost 28 years on.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:57 PM on March 31, 2016

> On a tangential note, that crowd at the '88 Olympics Ski Jump looks enormous!

Tickets were affordable then.
posted by ardgedee at 5:19 PM on March 31, 2016

Cool Runnings is still the best 1988 Winter Olympics movie.

A lot of great stories came out of the Calgary Olympics. I'm surprised that Hollywood has yet to plunder the narrative that kept two nations spellbound before bringing them to the brink of war, the Battle of the Brians.
posted by Flashman at 5:41 PM on March 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

For a nation that doesn't really do Winter Sports in the way that Canada or the Scandinavians do, when the Brits get behind a Winter Olympian, we do it properly. Torvill and Dean, Eddie the Eagle, and the 2002 Women's Curling Team: These are close to sacred national memories.
posted by DangerIsMyMiddleName at 7:25 PM on March 31, 2016 [5 favorites]

I was very excited to see the trailer for this movie. I might have to actually see a movie in the theatre.
posted by kevinbelt at 8:01 PM on March 31, 2016

Did I dream it, or did he turn up a few years ago on DIY SOS, not as a celebrity appearance, but just as one of the blokes working for the local builders?
posted by Segundus at 10:23 PM on March 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

His glasses should be thicker!
posted by gnuhavenpier at 12:18 AM on April 1, 2016

he still ranked 55th in the world

He was obviously not aware of that himself, given how he ended up as #57 in the only part that had more than 55 competitors, with less than half the points of #56. If you mean that the major nations could each have sent 55 jumpers better than him, you may have a point :-)

(for people who are at least a little aware of sport history, the anglophone focus on the incompetent clown gets a bit tiresome given how Calgary was one of those few occasions when a sport completely changes shape after someone comes up with a new way to do things; it's like if people would only talk about the guy that came last in the the 1968 high jumping, but of course in that case the innovator was an american and the last guy was some random dude from Sierra Leone competing in his country's first olympics ever, and he wasn't even that bad, so nobody remembers him.)
posted by effbot at 3:28 AM on April 1, 2016

I would have gone with myopic instead of biopic.

Well said. The lame adverts and embarrassing ticket giveaways are only a pale imitation of the inane hype that went on in 1988.
posted by sneebler at 7:13 AM on April 1, 2016

I think the Eddie the Eagle Rule is a good idea, as he made a mockery of the sport. It was an insult to the other atheletes, who had spent years learning their techniques and painstakinly perfecting them.

Sure, the lovable loser is an appealing trope, but in rodeo the clowns aren't competitors, basketball mascots stay on the sidelines during play , and the Top Gear crew don't appear in actual races.
posted by Steakfrites at 7:51 AM on April 1, 2016

So, more on the "ranked 55th" thing, which I got from wikipedia. Edwards results, and even his participation in events, are very poorly reported on, go figure, but.. FIS has a pretty nice results tracking site, go figure, so.. EDWARDS, Eddie. His best score was the 1989 world cup where he got 32 on the K115. That might appear to be comically ridiculous, because the next worst finisher that day (rank 93) got 60.5 points. However, from my brief look, that 32 was a fairly high last place score, much more consistent with bottom 10 than outright last. Meanwhile the 60.5 of the next last competitor was more like a bottom thirty (there were often ~120 competitors, that day only 94, which might explain the relatively higher scoring). Edwards best placing at an event was third last, of 122.

So.. I still vote athlete, rather than buffoon. The facts tilt closer to buffoon than I thought though, when I made that previous comment.
posted by Chuckles at 1:57 PM on April 2, 2016

Calgary was one of those few occasions when a sport completely changes shape after someone comes up with a new way to do things;

Huge! But ya, english language coverage of sport is extremely biased. USA, money? Funny how certain non-anglo athletes seem to get the anglo blessing too, I'm thinking Andy Schleck in cycling..
posted by Chuckles at 2:02 PM on April 2, 2016