Here “the Eagle” has not quite landed: Eddie Edwards competing on the 70m hill at Calgary 1988, where his lack of experience was clear for all to see and led to new rules being introduced into the sport[/caption]
“Eddie the Eagle” is perhaps one of the most inspirational sports movies in the English language, which were released in the last decade or so. It was released in 2016 as a biographical sports film directed by Dexter Fletcher, who also directed films such as Bohemian Rhapsody in 2018 and Rocketman in 2019.
The film stars Taron Egerton as Michael Edwards, the British skier who in 1988 became the first competitor to represent Great Britain in Olympic ski jumping since 1928.
Cut from the Olympic ski team, British athlete Michael “Eddie” Edwards travels to Germany to test his skills at ski jumping. Fate leads him to Bronson Peary, a former ski jumper who now works as a snowplow driver.
Impressed by Edwards’ spirit and determination, Peary agrees to train the young underdog. Despite an entire nation counting him out, Eddie’s never-say-die attitude takes him all the way to a historic and improbable showing at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, where Eddie became one of the most celebrated sporting idols for his sheer and uncanny determination, perseverance, and grit for a sportsman, in spite of all odds against him.
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From the 2016 movie “Eddie the Eagle” which starred Taron Egerton[/caption]
Hugh Jackman, Christopher Walken, Iris Berben, and Jim Broadbent co-starred in the movie “Eddie the Eagle”, a name emanated from the very ski jumping style of “Eddie”. The commentator of the Calgary event shouts in the film, at the very moment Edwards successfully lands after his jump, saying “the eagle has landed!”
The movie had its world premiere at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival on 26 January 2016. It received generally positive reviews from critics and in 2017 the film was nominated for the Empire Award for Best British Film too.
Most of all though, “Eddie the Eagle” continues ever since to inspire all and sundry who would turn to sport as a medium of self expression defying all challenges before them.