Who can forget Eddie the Eagle?

The next Winter Olympics are Feb. 9-25 in South Korea.

Thirty years ago, the star of the Calgary Winter Games was a British fellow by the name of Michael Edwards, known to all as “Eddie the Eagle.”

I think it’s the only time a competitor finished 48th in his sport and got more press than the winner.

Two years prior to Calgary, Edwards, who had never skijumped in his life, showed up in Lake Placid, N.Y., where he knew the U.S. Olympic team was practicing, with a story he was a British daredevil (which he was not).

Steven Sydow, of the 1988 U.S. skijump team, remembers well the day Edwards approached him and his fellow teammates. “The guy was a Goofus”, Sydow says. “I handed him my skis, called his bluff and said ‘Show us.’ He couldn’t produce.”

But the following year, Eddie returned to Lake Placid and told Sydow he wanted to learn the sport. They got him started, but nobody was impressed. Edwards soldiered on and made the British Olympic team because he was the only person who applied for it. The only reason he didn’t finish last in Calgary was because a French skier broke his leg and was disqualified.

Eddie was nicknamed “Mr. Magoo” by the press because his thick glasses kept fogging up his ski goggles.

After Calgary, he failed to qualify for the next three Olympics, but his lack of success endeared him to the world, including Johnny Carson who had him on the Tonight Show. He did get a spot running the Torch for the 2010 Vancouver Games.

Will there be another Eddie the Eagle in South Korea? Unlikely.

Fred Trainor is a retired broadcaster living in Okanagan Falls. Email: fredtrainor@shaw.ca.