The buzz
He's back. Eddie "the Eagle" Edwards, the British ski jumper who hit the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary like an errant slushball, is airborne again. With a sharp wit and the very un-aerodynamic body of a Gloucestershire construction worker, the Olympic everyman has set his sights on the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
After cashing in on his fleeting fame by becoming a side-show attraction, jumping cars and busses (ten of the former, six of the latter are personal bests), Edwards is now training year-round in Lake Placid, New York. He faces an obstacle even greater than a row of Fords. Since the Calgary controversy, Olympic officials have instituted a new rule designed to keep out rogue
athletes like Edwards. The Eagle, like everyone else, has to compete internationally prior to the Olympics, and he has to place much better than his dead-last finish at Calgary.
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