Dan Snow's History Hit - Eddie the Eagle

Episode Date: March 7, 2021

I am joined by an absolute legend on the podcast today; Eddie the Eagle. He became an overnight sensation during the 1988 Winter Olympics as the first person to represent Great Britain in ski jumping since 1928. Although he finished last in both the 70 metres and the 90 metres he became a worldwide phenomenon due to his positive attitude and the extraordinary story of how he reached the games. He is one of the most zen people I have had the pleasure of interviewing and is just as happy plastering as appearing in the public eye. In this episode, we talk all about his Olympic adventure and Eddie shares with us some of his life wisdom.

Elon Musk, the richest man on the planet, and Stephen Fry, the British comedian and public intellectual, are two people who probably agree on almost nothing. But they share a deep love for science fiction writer Douglas Adams, the genius behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. My name is Arvind Ethan David, and I'm the author of Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth. In my new audiobook, you'll hear rare recordings from the man who inspired a generation of futurists, technologists, and scientists. You'll hear readings of his visionary work from the voices of those who knew and loved him best, people like Stephen Fry and David

Baddiel. Get Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks, or wherever audiobooks are sold. Hi everyone, welcome to Anastos History. It gives me enormous happiness to talk to a man that was a legend when I was young, an absolute legend. Eddie the Eagle, Michael Edwards, earned the nickname Eddie the Eagle in the international press. I mean, this guy was world famous as a ski jumper in the 1988 Olympics. He was the first person to represent Great Britain in the Olympic ski jumping since 1928. And he wowed the world, finishing last in the 70 metres

and last in the 90 metres. But he did break the British ski jumping record. The man's a legend. He became a kind of worldwide phenomenon at the time. People of a certain age will remember him very well, like me. And then he's had a renaissance recently because they made a film about him in 2016, Eddie the Eagle, and he's done all sorts of UK-based reality shows, all of which he's performed very well in.

He is one of the most zen, nicest, most relaxed and wise celebrities I have ever met or interviewed. He is as happy in the public eye as he is plastering, which he does to make a living when money from other engagements runs out. He has a wonderful attitude to life. And so it was a huge honour to catch up with him and ask him about those events back in February 1988, when almost overnight he became one of the world's most recognised figures. A completely extraordinary story. I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did when I had it.

If you want to go back and watch some history shows, I think you can do so at historyhit.tv. Once you're at historyhit.tv, you can watch hundreds of hours of documentaries, listen to all these back episodes of the podcast without ads. It's a one-stop shop for history lovers. You've got to go and check it out. And if you really want to ramp up the history interaction, come to our live tour, historyhit.com slash tour. We'll be talking to some of the world's best historians, and we will be learning about the history of the cities in which we find ourselves that particular night it's going to be awesome historyhit.com slash tour in the meantime everybody here is eddie the eagle ed thank you so much for coming on the podcast that's okay It's nice to be here. Thank you very much. You captured the

imagination of the entire world. Does it feel like a dream that whole period of your life? Yeah, it still to this day feels very strange because it was not something I set out to do. All I wanted to do was go to the Olympic Games, compete in the ski jumping, get a little bit of attention from the media from the UK. And then I was hoping to turn that attention into sponsorship and then go for the 92, 94, 98 and 2002 Olympics and carry on. I didn't know that I was going to get christened Eddie the Eagle and then capture everybody's imagination. And it exploded. And to this day, I'm called Eddie the Eagle. And it's very nice, but it was totally unexpected but lovely.

Did you always have a passion for winter sports? You're not brought up in the mountains, how did it all begin for you? Well I'm from the Cotswolds so we're a bit hilly, we do get a bit of snow occasionally but I was very lucky that I have a local dry ski slope which is one of the biggest in the country, Gloucester Ski Centre. I used to love watching Ski Sunday when I was a kid and then I went on a school ski trip and then Gloucester Ski Centre became my home and I loved it. I did all sports when I was a kid but it wasn't until I started skiing and I thought wow this is such a fantastic sport and I'm just as excited to go skiing now as when I started you know over 40 years ago. And are you a big skier

still? Oh yes I still love my skiing i've not gone away this winter obviously because of covid but i do try and go away at least once a year but sometimes i could be away 10 or 11 weeks of the year skiing so yeah i still love it and i want to be skiing on my 100th birthday and i'll bet you're a really good skier well i wouldn't say that if anybody asks me i just say, I'm an average skier. But I still love it and I can still do a lot of things. And I can still do the same things that I used to do when I was 20 years old. So I still enjoy it.

And why did you go for jumping? Presumably you just wanted to compete, did you? Was jumping the one that took your fancy? Or did you think that was where the opportunity was? Well, originally I was into racing, alpine ski racing. I was doing slalom, giant slalom, super G, downhill. I was in America racing internationally. And I ran out of money. And I couldn't afford to carry on racing. It was way too expensive. But I saw ski jumping, and it was still skiing, but it was a lot cheaper for me to do. So it was an economic decision economic decision really and I started ski jumping on

the very very small jumps and went my way up to the big ones and then I discovered that nobody'd really been a ski jumper from Great Britain and I carried on and they set a qualification for Calgary and I managed to reach it and they let me go and then it all went haywire but that's how it all happened. This is all a long time before government funded or lottery funded sports bursaries or whatever they're called. I mean, how did you support yourself when you were back in the early days of jumping? Very, very difficult. Although I was a skier and skiing is very much a minority sport in Great Britain and trying to get sponsorship is very, very difficult. And I just did the best I could. I was a plasterer with my dad.

So my dad gave me some money. I would work with him for a few weeks, make as much money as I could. And then my mum would let me borrow her car. I would drive into Europe and then I would make that money last as long as possible. And I slept in the car. I slept in cow sheds. I slept in barns. I slept in mental hospitals. I slept in a tent. I did all kinds of things just to make my money go as far as I possibly could. And then I got little jobs here and there as well, working in hotels, washing up, scrubbing floors, shoveling snow, waiting tables to get a bit of money or a bit of food. And I did it that way and carried on my skiing and then obviously my ski jumping. Did you love it? Was it all worth it? Loved it. It was such a great way to do it.

And I don't regret it at all because it made me into the person I am today. And I'm really appreciative of the things I receive and the kindness I get from people. And it was such a great way to do it. And I loved it. I loved every second of it. When did the Olympics become feasible? Because this was a time when Britain just didn't send anyone to the Winter Olympics. Because I'm half Canadian, so we used to watch it in our family. My schoolmates all thought we were weird, like we didn't even mark it. That's right. Well, even now, Great Britain only send about 50 athletes to the Winter Olympics, because we're not really a winter nation. We do have a bit of a history years ago of figure skaters,

Robin Cousins, Torvald and Dean and people before then. And we have a couple of good bobsledders occasionally with the army. Now we've done very well with the skeleton and luge and things. And of course, in Scotland, we do curling. But generally speaking, we're not a winter nation. So that was part of the appeal, really. I love my skiing. I loved all sports, but especially skiing. And I thought, let me go with that. And it's such a great sport. And I still love to watch skiing to this day on TV. How does it work for the winter Olympics? You have to hit a qualifying distance or time, do you, in a qualifying event? Yeah, with ski jumping, I had to reach a certain distance in a World Cup competition. And I did that in December of 1987. And then I was written a letter

in the January of 1988. But at the time when I received the letter, I was written a letter in the January of 1988 but at the time when I received the letter I was in a mental hospital in Finland I was up there ski jumping training and I had nowhere to stay and they let me stay in this mental hospital because they were renovating one of the wings of the hospital I rang my mum and she said I've got this letter for you and she opened it and she said my god you've been picked you'll go into the Olympic Games. And that was it. I came out of that mental hospital, flew home to London, picked up my uniform, went to Steamboat Springs in Colorado to train with the US team and then straight to Calgary to compete. So it was amazing, amazing time. It became a fun thing for you to laugh about, but you were a good ski jumper, right? You're in the top hundred in the world. You deserve

to be there. I was very much a beginner when I went to Calgary because I'd only been jumping for 20 months everybody else there at the Olympics had been jumping for 20 years so there was no way that I was going to beat anybody but for me getting there was the greatest thing was my gold medal really but I was still very much a beginner but I was hoping by getting some attention and getting some sponsorship over the next 10-20 years I could could have been a really, really good ski jumper. Unfortunately, I got so much attention at Calgary, to the extent where I got more attention than the guy who won the event. They didn't like the fact that a guy who came 58th was getting more attention. They brought out these new rules and effectively kicked me out of the sport.

So I wasn't able to reach quite the potential that I wanted to, but it was still great fun doing it. Well, we'll come to that. That's a terrifying end to the story. But just tell me about the game, because I spent a lot of time in Calgary when I was young. The ski jump dominates the city as you drive west towards the Rocky Mountains.

I know it so well. What was it like going to the Olympics? What was that experience like? Oh, it was magic. It was like a circus. It was fantastic. And the Calgarians were so proud of hosting an Olympic Games. It was a fantastic experience. From the moment you land at Calgary Airport, going to the Olympic Games, to the moment you leave, it was just fantastic. at the university where it became the athlete's village.

We had everything that we needed to do our training. Of course, I was going to the ski jumps every day to try and ski jump, but it was often very windy. Parties every night. The whole centre of Calgary was just one big party every night with Olympic ceremonies and medal ceremonies and all that kind of thing. And it was just tremendous. And I loved every second of being there.

of thing. And it was just tremendous. And I loved every second of being there. You listen to Dan Snow's history, but I'm talking to Eddie the Eagle. More after this. Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt, and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits.

There are new episodes every week. Elon Musk, the richest man on the planet, and Stephen Fry, the British comedian and public intellectual, are two people who probably agree on almost nothing. But they share a deep love for science fiction writer Douglas Adams, the genius behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. My name is Arvind Ethan David, and I'm the author of Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth.

In my new audiobook, you'll hear rare recordings from the man who inspired a generation of futurists, technologists, and scientists. You'll hear readings of his visionary work from the voices of those who knew and loved him best, people like Stephen Fry and David Baddiel. Get Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks

or wherever audiobooks are sold. I've had some big nights out in Calgary it's a fun town when did things get weird when did things start I mean one minute you're just a competing athlete the next minute you're a global superstar what happened I think it was the press conference at Calgary. They did it in the Saddledome in downtown Calgary. And I couldn't get into my press conference because the security guard wouldn't let me in. And then when I eventually managed to get into this press conference, I had 700 people from the media from all over the world. late but the security guard wouldn't let me in because he said I didn't look like an athlete and of course they roared with laughter and then I told him all about my life as a ski jumper and the experiences that I had and the places in which I found myself like the mental hospital and things and it just exploded and of course when I arrived in Calgary I was walking through the airport and there was a great big banner on the wall saying welcome to Calgary Eddie the Eagle and I said wow I said who's that and they said it's you and that was it I got christened Eddie the Eagle and it just

exploded and I've been known that ever since. But why why did they pick you out was it just because they heard that you were a novice jumper who managed to qualify? Yes I think it was because I did an interview with the BBC nine o'clock news two weeks before Calgary and I said I'm Eddie Edwards and I'm going to be Britain's first ever Olympic ski jumper and I said and to all you people out there who I asked for sponsorship and you didn't give it to me I said I got there without your help and they got such a response from that interview in the UK and then they sent it to Calgary and they showed it on Canadian television and they thought oh my god this guy from Great Britain he's got no snow no ski jumps no money no training no equipment and yet he's doing this really dangerous sport of ski jumping and they just loved it and

they really took on board what I was trying to achieve and what I was doing and they loved every second of it just like I did doing it. Be honest all that tension was it good fun or did it actually distract you was it harmful do you think looking actually distract you? Was it harmful, do you think, looking back? Sometimes it was a little bit distracting, but I was still able to go off and do some training. There was a little ski jump in Norquay near Banff, and I was nipping out there.

When it was too windy to jump in Calgary, I was nipping in a car and going to Norquay and doing some jumping there. I know Norquay very well. I used to work in Canmore every summer when I was a student. Ah yes,, that's right. Yeah, I used to pass Canmore and all the cross-country stuff. Yeah, I was getting a little bit of training in there. But on the bigger picture, it was fantastic. You know, I didn't know that I was going to get the attention that I got. And I just rolled with it. I just went with the flow and enjoyed it while it

lasted. It was a good opportunity. Did the other jumpers just hate you? Their egos must have been bruised. No, no. In fact, 90% of the jumpers loved it. They were saying, this is fantastic. All this attention that was being thrust upon me was also being thrust upon the sport of ski jumping. And they said, this is wonderful. More people wanted to watch it. More people wanted to do it. More companies wanted to put money into it. It was just one or two of the best jumpers who didn't like it. They said, I'm the best jumper in the world. I should be the most popular. But most of the others loved it.

They said it was great. And who's heard of Matty Nickenon now? He died last year, unfortunately, poor guy. But he was actually quite nice because he didn't like the media. And so he was really appreciative of the fact that I was taking all the media attention away from him because he didn't really like talking to the media so he loved it oh sorry a huge wow apologies to Matty and his family there god poor thing yeah it was a shame it was quite a shock because he's my age and he died

yeah 18 months ago but he's had a tough life with drink and drugs and all that kind of thing. But bless him, he was a great jumper in his time. Winning gold medals can ruin your life. It's not what it's cracked up to be. He dominated the sport for 20 odd years and won everything you could win. Nobody dominated the sport like Matty did back in the 1980s. When it came to the jump, I remember I was 10 years old. I was at home in the UK. I was watching with my mum. And tell us what happened. Oh, it was great. It was a clear blue sky, beautiful sunny day. There was no wind. And there was 91,000 people in the stadium

watching. And about three or four competitors before I was due to go down, I could hear the crowd start to shout, Eddie, Eddie, they wanted me to jump. And, you know, I walked out there, put my skis on. I looked down to the US coach because he said he would flag me down. I looked for his flag and he waved and off I went. The roar from the crowd, even though I was jumping through the air, I could hear the roar. And I managed to jump 71 meters which was a new British record I jumped further in competition at Calgary than I ever did before and I managed to land on my feet and I was very happy to land and they celebrated the whole achievement it was great you didn't manage to win a medal though oh no no no you know 58th I cameth, but that didn't matter. For me,

getting there was the greatest thing. And you ended up on every single television show around the world. For three years afterwards, my feet didn't touch the ground. I was opening shopping centres, golf courses, fun rides, doing TV, radio shows, having a whale of a time. The one thing you weren't doing was ski jumping, unfortunately. Well, unfortunately, people in officialdom didn't like the fact that I got all that attention. They brought out these new rules. In America, they call it the Eddie the Eagle rule, which effectively kicked me out of the sport.

And athletes had to reach a certain standard to go to the Olympics, which I thought goes way against all the Olympic ideals, which was a shame, really. So it's very short-sighted of them. But what can you do? Was it annoying because the film version that was made i mean they made a film about you i mean what was that yes well calgary they made two movies they made cool runnings about the jamaican bobsled team and then my film eddie the eagle so it was a great olympics for the underdogs definitely yeah to have a movie made

about my life was amazing i signed the deal to make that movie 21 years ago and then it was because i did splash about six years ago that was the impetus to make the movie 21 years ago. And then it was because I did Splash about six years ago. That was the impetus to make the film. And they did such a great job making the film. I love it. But I think you came across as a bit hapless. And actually, you weren't hapless. You were a good athlete.

You weren't scared of heights and all that kind of stuff. Well, not really. I'm a little bit more confident with heights than most people. But I was still scared when I ski jumped. You have to be scared because when you're nervous, you focus, you concentrate more. Because I knew that if I made a mistake, I would get hurt. So you have to be nervous. You have to be scared to do the sport.

But the film really showed that through tenacity, through resilience, and through never giving up, you can achieve great things. And it really captured the heart and spirit and essence of my story. And they did it in such a nice way. I've seen the film so many times now, and I think they did a wonderful job in capturing my life story as a ski jumper. Is it weird when you become one of the most famous people in the world, when that tide slowly ebbs out? Did you think it would go on forever? Or did you realise it's just a weird thing that would last for a few years

and you might as well enjoy it? Well, to be honest, I never really looked that far ahead. It was great what happened at Calgary and I rode the wave, went with the flow for a few years afterwards, three or four years, made as much money as I could

and put it in the bank and things. But I was quite prepared. For me, the fame side was just a job and I knew that that job eventually would just get less and less I would earn less from it but I had other things to fall back on my building my construction my plastering that kind of thing and then when the film came out I gave up my building and my plastering and and I've been traveling all over the world for the last four or five years doing talks at conferences and dinners and things like that and in my spare time I do a bit of plastering you know I enjoy doing it but if it all ended

tomorrow I would be perfectly happy because I just love doing my plastering and my construction as much as I do my Eddie the Eagle work and my skiing and my ski jumping so I just love doing everything. And you make enough money to get a few little ski trips in every year? Absolutely, yeah. I work with a couple of travel companies, so I try and get out between three and seven times a year skiing. I speak on cruises, so I go on four or five cruises a year. I thought, what a great life, you know, and I do a bit of plastering, which keeps me fit, do a bit of speaking. It's great. I think I've got the perfect lifestyle now. I can do what I want, speaking it's great I think I've got the perfect lifestyle now I can do what I want when I want how I want and it's perfect when you're plastering do people know that it's Eddie the Eagle nowadays I only do plastering for friends and family so if I've got friends who need some work

doing then I'll help them out whereas I did have a bit of a problem years ago because people would ring me up and ask me to come around and give them a quote just so that they could say oh any vehicle came to my house when they didn't really want me to do any work and it was just wasting my time so nowadays I just do a bit of work for friends and family plastering keeps me fit it keeps me grounded a friend of mine is a builder and I was doing some plastering yesterday and I'll be doing some plastering tomorrow as well but I still enjoy it so I thought why, why not? And also because of my speaking, because of COVID, all my speaking work just died a death for the foreseeable future. And it's just a nice little bit of pocket money coming in and I'm happy. What are the lessons you got from the rest of us as someone who's been both a global

celebrity and a man who earns his living with his hands? What's any of the eagle wisdom that we need to take away? Oh gosh, that would be hard hard I think just be happy with your lot if you enjoy doing what you're doing you're in a perfect situation it doesn't really matter how much you're earning I think it's far more important to do something you love doing than to do a job that you hate but you get paid well for and as for sport go for it and even if people turn around and say it can't be done you can't do it for me that was like a red rag to a bull and I would try and prove them wrong and I like nothing better than proving people wrong and I say if you think you can do it you go for it and ignore what everybody else says so just do anything you like to do and go for it really

you got any surprises left for us any in the years to come? Well, I don't know yet. I surprise myself all the time. When I did Splash six years ago, I thought it would be great if I could just reach the final and then I ended up winning the show. So I've got a few surprises in store, but I won't reveal them just yet.

But I'm just up for whatever comes along. If I get invited to do something like Strictly, I'll throw myself into that. Or Dancingrictly, I'll throw myself into that. Or Dancing on Ice, I'll throw myself into that. Have a lot of fun doing it and see what happens. But yeah, I might surprise a few people. Thank you so much, Eddie. Thanks for coming on.

So Eddie, what's the best way for people to follow you, stay in touch with you? Well, I've got photographs on my website, eddietheeagle.co.uk. And people can get in touch if they want me to come along and do a talk or things like that i do a lot of after dinner speaking and motivational talks and things like that so yeah go on to our website and get in touch thank you so much for coming on the podcast thank you i hope you enjoyed the podcast just before you go our school history our songs this part of the history of our country all work out

and finish I hope you enjoyed the podcast just before you go bit of a favour to ask totally understand if you don't want to become a subscriber or pay me any cash money makes sense

but if you could just do me a favour it's for free go to iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts if you give it a 5 star rating and give it an absolutely glowing review purge yourself give it a glowing review

I'd really appreciate that it's a tough world out that law of the jungle out there and i need all the fire support i can get so that will boost it up the charts it's so tiresome but if you could do it i'd be very very grateful thank you elon musk the richest man on the planet and stephen fry the british comedian and public intellectual are two people who probably agree on almost nothing the richest man on the planet, and Stephen Fry, the British comedian and public intellectual, are two people who probably agree on almost nothing. But they share a deep love for science fiction writer Douglas Adams, the genius behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

My name is Arvind Ethan David, and I'm the author of Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth. In my new audiobook, you'll hear rare recordings from the man who inspired a generation of futurists, technologists, and scientists. You'll hear readings of his visionary work from the voices of those who knew and loved him best, people like Stephen Fry and David Baddiel. Get Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. you