At
World Cup level he won gold and silver medals at the
1994 Winter Olympics at
Lillehammer. At the
1992 Winter Olympics, he performed badly, coming last in the normal hill and 57th out of 59 on the large hill. He had converted from the
parallel technique to the
V-style just a month previously. His poor performance gave him the nickname "Espen the Eagle", based on British ski jumper
Eddie 'the Eagle' Edwards. At the
FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 1993 in
Falun, he won gold medals both in the team large hill and the individual large hill events. In the 1993/94 season, he won the
Four Hills Tournament. He won gold and silver medals at the
1994 Winter Olympics at
Lillehammer, and won a silver medal at the
FIS Ski-Flying World Championships 1994 in
Planica. Bredesen twice beat the world
ski flying record with jumps of 209 meters (1994) and 210 meters (1997). Bredesen also won the ski jumping competition at the
Holmenkollen ski festival in 1993. He was awarded the
Holmenkollen medal in 1994 (shared with
Ljubov Egorova and
Vladimir Smirnov). == World Cup ==