COTSWOLD Feature
Eddie ‘the Eagle’
It’s 25 years since Eddie ‘the Eagle’ Edwards soared to global stardom as Britain’s first (and only) ski jumper at the Calgary Olympics and recently North Woodchester’s most famous resident found fame again by winning ITV’s celebrity diving show, Splash!
Words by Jane Leigh Pictures by Carl Hewlett
SO what’s next for daredevil Eddie? “Getting on with renovating my house,” he laughs. “I bought a house in South Woodchester a little while ago and I’m doing it up, so this year I’m hoping to focus on that.” Eddie, who’ll be 50 in
December, was born and brought up in Cheltenham, attending Norton Park Secondary School in Leckhampton. He says: “I loved school and I was very good at technical drawing so had thoughts of being a draughtsman . . . but then other things got in the way.” The other things were,
principally, skiing. Eddie recalls: “I went on a school ski trip when I was 13 and we had four lessons at the Gloucester Ski Centre before we went. When we got back I asked my dad if I could keep going and he started taking me over to Gloucester until eventually I was spending every weekend there, skiing and helping out.” All the practice paid off and
Eddie began to carve a name for himself as a downhill racer. “I
was invited to train with the England team when I was 15,” he explains, “and after leaving school I got a job with a travel firm and went to Italy to be a ski instructor and mechanic. And I got my international licence when I was 17, after which I started racing around Europe and then America.” It was while he was training in
America that Eddie first tried ski jumping, and he qualified for the 1988 Winter Olympics after coming 55th in the 1987 World Championships. Looking back on those days,
Eddie says: “I knew there’d be a certain amount of interest from the British press as I was the first-ever British Olympic ski jumper, but I didn’t realise I’d become famous world-wide. “Before I went out to Canada
my story was on TV and some supporters coined the name Eddie the Eagle and sent donations to pay for me to go over. The TV story was then shown in Canada, so when I arrived the first thing I saw at the airport was a huge banner saying ‘Welcome to Canada,
60 COTSWOLDESSENCE | September - November 2013
Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards jumping in the Calgary 1988 Winter Olympics
Eddie Edwards
pictured near his home in Woodchester
www.cotswoldessence.co.uk
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