British Winter Olympics icon Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards says he would have made the same call as Lindsey Vonn after the American alpine ski racer’s injury gamble drew scrutiny.
The 62-year-old became one of Britain’s most recognisable Winter Olympians after finishing last in ski jumping at the 1988 Calgary Games – a performance which made him a global name and later inspired a Hollywood film.
And he understood why Vonn, one of the most decorated female skiers in history, chose to risk it all as he believes the instinct to compete rarely fades, even when the dangers are obvious and the body is no longer fully cooperating.
Edwards said: “The athlete always wants to compete and I would still try and do the best I could with what I had – and if that was a dodgy knee, then so be it.
“The risks are much higher, but the athlete inside you thinks, ‘Yeah, I want to do it.’”
Vonn, the 2010 Olympic downhill champion, crashed just 13 seconds into her run in Cortina, having chosen to compete only nine days after rupturing ligaments in her left knee.
The 41-year-old was airlifted from the piste and later diagnosed with a complex tibia fracture, requiring multiple surgeries after what was set to be her fifth and final Olympic appearance.
Nearly four decades after Calgary, Edwards remains physically active and still skis regularly.
That is despite a career that saw him fracture his skull twice, break his collarbone in five places, crack ribs, damage his kidney and tear ligaments in his knee across more than 25,000 jumps.
“They were just minor inconveniences,” Edwards said of his own injuries.
“I’d be out for three or four weeks and then straight back on the jump.”
He plans to ski jump once more this September at the 10th anniversary of a Nordic ski jumping arena in Switzerland, where organisers have invited him back to mark the occasion.
Edwards sees Vonn’s decision as part of the same mindset which drove his own career.
“I think it’s just the challenge,” he said.
“You’re immediately an underdog, and you think, ‘Right, I’ll prove I can do it.’”
That mindset shaped his own route to Calgary, which included training across Europe while sleeping in cars, barns and, for five weeks, a psychiatric hospital in Finland because it was warm and close to the ski jumps.
“That was just what you did if you wanted to keep training,” he said.
“You didn’t really think about it as unusual at the time, you just thought, ‘Right, this works, I can stay here and get my jumps in.’”
While Vonn has been publicly backed by Team USA and praised for her determination as she recovers from multiple surgeries, Edwards remembers a far less forgiving atmosphere in 1988.
In the immediate aftermath of Calgary, he was mocked in sections of the British and international press, caricatured as ‘Mr Magoo’ and dismissed as a flop despite becoming one of the most talked-about athletes at the Games.
He has since argued some officials were uneasy with the level of attention he attracted after finishing last in both ski jumping events, and qualification standards were later tightened in what became widely known as the ‘Eddie the Eagle rule’.
“They didn’t like the fact that a guy who came last got more attention than the guy who won,” Edwards said.
“They couldn’t ban me directly, but they changed the rules.”
“It meant that to go to the Games you had to be ranked in the top 50 in the world or placed in the top 30 per cent of an international competition, and there was no way I could reach that qualification.”
Edwards believes the landscape around elite athletes has changed since his era.
He pointed to advances in medical treatment and the broader support systems now in place, noting modern competitors often have teams of physios, psychologists and analysts around them in ways that were far less visible in the late 1980s.
“Nowadays they can do things they couldn’t do 30 or 40 years ago,” Edwards said.
“Complete knee replacements and operations that get you back quicker. It’s much better now.”
He did not criticise Vonn’s decision either, instead framing it as the natural instinct of someone who has spent a lifetime chasing margins.
“It would have been a fairy-tale ending if she’d got a medal,” Edwards said.
“It just wasn’t to be. I hope she recovers well and carries on.”
Feature image: Free to use on Unsplash
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