His interest in legal issues piqued, Edwards went on to gain a law degree a decade later. He sued the trustees for negligence and an out-of-court settlement was agreed. In 1992 Edwards entered involuntary bankruptcy due to an unpaid tax bill, which he attributed to mismanagement of those who ran a trust fund on his behalf. I always say my first job is my building trade. Cementing his down-to-earth persona, Edwards revealed: “Once I was making £10,000 for an hour's work but there have been years where my promotional stuff has brought in only a few hundred. Then about a month later, in a single day, I opened a ride at (UK theme park) Alton Towers, filmed a commercial and did other promotional work.”īut income was erratic. “The first was when I sold my life story to a national newspaper at the Winter Olympics, Calgary, in 1988. Post Games, Edwards' Olympic journey continued.īenefiting commercially from his experience he told a financial website that he had twice earned £65,000 for a day's work (worth around $100,000 US at the time). READ: Olympic Cinderellas – How a British plasterer became ski jumping legend Eddie the Eagle “At these Games, some competitors have won gold, some have broken records and some of you have even soared like an eagle,” said Frank King, the head of Calgary's organising committee. The good-natured man with a self-deprecating personality – “I'd like to say I flew like an eagle, but I was probably closer to the ostrich," he told one newspaper – was even mentioned in the closing ceremony speech: Waving wildly to the huge crowd seconds before jumping from the 70m or 90m-long slopes engaged fans on site, while a beaming smile and looking directly into TV cameras on landing safely, enamoured the increasing numbers of viewers at home and around the world. No nutritionists for Edwards, he’d eat food out of bins or just staples such as bread.Īdd Edwards’ signature ‘look’ of thick-lensed glasses, which would steam up in the altitude of the mountains, and perch under additional vision-diminishing pink-rimmed ski goggles, and you have quite the character. With no external funding, money-saving scenarios such as sleeping in cars, barns, and even, temporarily, a disused hospital in Finland, added to his lore.Ī lack of equipment led to borrowing items such as ski boots, which required wearing six pairs of socks to fill the too-big footwear. All money made from his plastering job was ploughed into chasing his Olympic dream. Eddie 'the Eagle' Edwards' Cinderella storyĮdwards had made it to Calgary despite limited resources.
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