Posted on 08/22/2016 8:33:05 PM PDT by nickcarraway
It's been nearly half a century since the term "agony of defeat" joined the lexicon of American sports.
To this day, the phrase remains a broadcasting staple, whether it's coverage of the Olympics or any number of sports. A Google search for "agony of defeat" returns nearly 500,000 results.
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."
(Excerpt) Read more at espn.com ...
He fared better than Michael Kennedy and Sonny Bono.
LOL!
Much better than the article where the guy went to Mexico and tracked down Mario Mendoza who was managing some AA ballclub. He was apparently unaware that “The Mendoza Line” had become standard baseball jargon. Absolutely freaked out on the reporter when he was told about it.
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 worlds 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...
That bizarre accident could have maimed or even killed that ski jumper. But amazingly, he survived with only minor injuries. Glad he’s alive today as a well-known artist.
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