He fared better than Michael Kennedy and Sonny Bono.
I saw that one live when it happened.
I remember seeing another ski jump wipeout, always wondered why it wasn’t the “agony of defeat” clip. The jumper wiped out, tumbled down the landing hill and when he slid to a stop you could see one leg up and the ankle was flopped over at a 90º angle. I don’t remember how many broken bones he had, but it was a really bad wipeout. I can’t find a video clip, I just looked for a half hour or more.
This one was bad enough...never knew (or didn’t remember) who it was, the story about Ali asking for his autograph was pretty interesting. He didn’t know he was famous until then.
Interesting factoid...while looking around I checked the Olympics site, it says
The origin of ski jumping can be traced to Ole Rye who jumped 9.5m in 1808. Norwegian Sondre Norheim is widely considered the father of modern ski jumping. In 1866 he won what has been described as the world’s first ski jumping competition with prizes, held at Ofte, Høydalsmo, Norway.
Around 30 feet in 1808 to today. I didn’t look up the current world record, but I watched a (successful) 267 foot jump. Incredible.
I always thought these people were out of their minds. Ski jumping and Luge are two things I don’t think I’d ever ever consider trying...actually I’ve never had any interest in plain old skiing...I’ll stick to my bicycle, think you...