"Winter Olympic Events"
With 8 days to go until the opening of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, today's "Winter Olympics Event" we want to focus on the legendary British ski jumper Eddie Edwards.
Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics
Eddie Edwards is remembered for his offbeat performance at the Winter Olympics, where he was not highly skilled or ranked well, but in a dramatic way, forced the IOC to introduce a new rule for him: the Eddie Rule.
At the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Eddie Edwards represented The United Kingdom in ski jumping. As an amateur athlete with mediocre qualifications, he overcame many difficulties in the face of everyone's disappointment, not only completed the 70-meter ski jump, but also challenged his first 90-meter jump in his life.
Eddie's final result was not ideal, some people said that he only exploited the loophole in the rules to participate in the Winter Olympics; but more people still applauded him, thinking that this is the best interpretation of the Olympic spirit.
After the end of the Winter Olympics, the FIS was "complained" by many individual federations, so it introduced the "Eddie Rules" named after Eddie, stipulating that only athletes in the top 50 of the world ranking, or the top 30 percent of athletes, are eligible to participate in the Olympic Games.
Beginning in 1990, the International Olympic Committee raised the threshold for participation in the Olympic Games to a level that was difficult for ordinary athletes to reach. The "leap of the century" of "civilian" Eddie has thus become history. This legendary experience was adapted by later generations into a movie "Flying Eagle Eddie".
(Stills from the movie "Eddie the Eagle")
Out of consideration for the safety of participating athletes and the guarantee of the quality of the competition, the Eddie Rules came into being. Since then, healthy competition among professional athletes has constantly created new possibilities. At present, there is already a "250 club" for ski jumping, and more than a dozen outstanding athletes who have reached the 250 meters have been listed among them, and the number is still increasing.