Who is the agony of defeat guy

Today is the 50 th anniversary of the crash during a European competition that literally made him famous by accident. The sports anthology series aired from to early , hosted for most of that time by Jim McKay.

As is implied by the title, the show brought viewers a wide variety of sports, many of which were out of the mainstream. Who was the agony of defeat? Who was the guy in the agony of defeat?

Did the agony of defeat guy died? The San Antonio native, who died at 76 in his Phoenix home on Christmas, was a legendary figure in drag racing, renowned for his driving, loved for his affable personality and credited with a peculiar sports marketing innovation.

What is the saying the agony of defeat? Instead, he lost his balance and became a human missile hurtling toward spectators out of control at the base of the ramp. Bogataj crashed through a light barrier fence, resulting in a broken ankle and a mild concussion. Jim McKay : Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat the human drama of athletic competition.

The one sports commentator most closely associated with the show, however, is Jim McKay —. He was on hand for the very first broadcast, which aired on , and featured the Drake Relays, from Des Moines, Iowa, and the Penn Relays, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Slim Pickens in the comedy movie classic Blazing Saddles might have the same look on his face when seeing recent developments with the New Orleans Pelicans.

The goal of the program was to showcase sports from around the globe that were seldom, if ever, broadcast on American television. With that in mind, we revisit the viral video that made an indelible mark on the sports world long before the era of social media -- the frightful ski jumping crash from the opening montage of "ABC's Wide World of Sports. Fans of a certain age almost certainly remember the image of Slovenian athlete Vinko Bogataj wiping out on the takeoff ramp and hurtling toward a gallery of spectators.

If you're too young to have seen it, here is a famed piece of sports history in 15 seconds:. Bogataj, then 22 years old and competing for Yugoslavia, suffered a concussion and a broken ankle in a terrifying tumble at the World Ski Flying Championships in Oberstdorf, West Germany.

It wasn't long before ABC began using the clip of the crash to accompany the phrase "agony of defeat" in the "Wide World of Sports" introduction. With that, Bogataj became famous in the United States -- quite literally by accident. He's the Agony of Defeat Guy, and this is his story. Vinko Bogataj, airborne. Source: Facebook, Vinko Bogataj. Source: Dailymotion. The show, which typically aired on Saturdays, began with an opening montage of stylized sports shots, accompanied by a voiceover from Jim McKay:.

The anthology show focused on the highlights from a variety of sports and competitions from around the world. Bogataj crashing over the side of the ramp. On the day he crashed into notoriety, the weather was not very good; it was windy and the ramp was icy. For his first jump, after he landed the jump, he fell partway down the hill.