Injecting your penis with hyaluronic acid isn’t for everyone.
One former Olympic ski jumper weighed in on the alleged phenomenon occurring at the 2026 Winter Games in Italy, telling The Sun that he would never dare.
“I wouldn’t go that far at all,” Team Great Britain’s Michael Edwards, better known as Eddie the Eagle, said in a story published Friday, February 6. “I didn’t want to win that much. I enjoy my love life too much to do that.”
Edwards, 62, continued, “I wouldn’t want it to affect my love life for the next 30 years. I’m sure my partner now thinks I wouldn’t want to do it either.”
Edwards was the first ski jumper ever to represent Great Britain when he competed in the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. He finished last in both events he competed in, and his lack of success made him a minor celebrity at the time, even earning him an invite to The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
He was also the subject of the 2016 movie Eddie the Eagle, starring Hugh Jackman and Taron Egerton, who played Edwards
“When I heard the story, I nearly laughed my pants off. It’s a bit silly really,” Edwards said of the penis acid rumors. “They’re injecting to make their penises larger so that when they’re measured for a suit they get a slightly bigger suit.”
It’s exactly as ridiculous as it sounds. In what is now known as Penis-gate, reports have emerged from Italy that anti-doping chiefs are investigating allegations that ski jumpers are injecting their penises with hyaluronic acid in order to add girth.
The thinking is that it would cause them to be fitted for bigger suits, which could create more drag in the crotch area and lengthen their jumps.
“It’d only make literally one or two centimeters difference,” Edwards said. “I think a one or two-mile-an-hour gust of wind would be more beneficial to you when you’re flying through the air.”
The International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS), however, poured cold water on the reports on Friday. Communications director Bruno Sassi called it a “wild rumor” that started “a few weeks ago from pure hearsay.”
“[There has] been no indication, let alone evidence, that any competitor has ever made use of a hyaluronic acid injection to attempt to gain a competitive advantage,” he told People.
But the idea that Olympic athletes would try to, shall we say, pad their stats, is nothing new. As Edwards said, “countries have always been trying to find an advantage.”
“I think the Swedes once put webbing between their fingers in their gloves, elbows and legs,” he recalled. “Then that was all banned. Down the years, people have tried all the tricks.”
For Edwards, he competed at a time where the uniform rules were not nearly as strict as they are today.
“When I was jumping I’d wear a suit probably two sizes bigger than me just for comfort because then it was easier for me to get into my jumping position,” he said. “But now the ski jumping suits are like a second skin, they fit very, very tightly.”
