Posted on 03/21/2020 3:10:37 PM PDT by Kid Shelleen
Could you imagine the worst moment of your career being put on display for all to see on a weekly basis for decades? If so, then you can identify with Vinko Bogataj, immortalized by his epic crash off a ski-jumping ramp that came to represent “the agony of defeat.”
Today is the 50th anniversary of the crash during a European competition that literally made him famous by accident. The clip endured for decades as part of the opening for each week’s “Wide World of Sports” and lives on as a YouTube favorite.
(Excerpt) Read more at sportscasting.com ...
Boy do I ever remember that.
I was kind of a Ski Jumping fanatic back then.
Wasn’t Bogataj in reality a very good skier?
I consider myself as brave as the next guy, maybe even braver, but there is no way I would try ski jumping.
Classic Vintage Crash Scene Ping)))
I remember watching that too. I seem to remember that the ski jump got really icy that day and they eventually stopped the competition. So it wasn’t the skiers fault, just bad conditions.
Ski Jumping is one of those things I’ll never figure out how anyone can have the guts to do.
Innocent times.
No crash helmet back then.
In winter sports, it’s the men’s downhill that has to be the most treacherous event of them all. And the skeleton (like the luge, but HEAD FIRST down the hill) is like racing at Daytona without a harness or a windshield in the car.
My all-time Olympic moment is still Franz Klammer in the 1976 Winter Olympics downhill.
VERY good jumper. VERY good. Like all the Euro jumpers.
I used to go to the Pine Mountain Classic-as they call it now, every year. Thats in Iron Mountain MI.
The jumpers, although they compete against others, will tell you that the number one competitor they compete against is the hill.
I have watched them group up and talk to each other on how the heck they can beat that hill.
Tell you what, you can actually say that they are NUTS.
Ski flying is really something. I dont even know what the record is now and I would bet its over 700 feet.
Back in the early 2000s the first to adapt the “V” shape style was a Fin. A kid who was 16 at the time..I think.
Because it’s fun.
It’s like repelling, only sideways.
I’ve stood at the top of the ski jump hill in Park City (2002 Olympic Venue), and OMG it is steep!
You can see a few interesting sports legends in most of these intro’s.
My favorite so far is from 1980 which gives you a second “Agony of Defeat” along with this one.
Starts at 3:38 in this clip:
Vinz Clortho, Keymaster of Gozer [Ghostbusters]:
Many Old Mils and Pabsts knew what it was to be chugged in the depths of the Finns and Swedes that day I can tell you."
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