Comments on: The Agony of Defeat

The Agony of Defeat

maxwelton — Wed, 16 May 2007 22:26:10 -0800

One man appeared more often than any other on the sports anthology ABC's Wide World of Sports: Yugoslavian ski jumper Vinko Bogataj, whose spectacular 1970 crash was shown in the show's opening montage to the words "and the agony of defeat." (Despite the brutality of the crash, he suffered only a concussion.) He still lives in his hometown of Lesce, Slovenia, and since retiring from his factory job in 2005 has devoted himself to critically acclaimed painting. Charmingly enough, he had no idea of his celebrity status until he was asked to appear during a special to mark the show's 20th anniversary in 1981.

By: rob511

rob511 — Wed, 16 May 2007 22:33:40 -0800

Nice timing, maxwelton — this post on the day after Falwell!

By: oneirodynia

oneirodynia — Wed, 16 May 2007 22:38:37 -0800

Nice post, maxwelton! My parents watched WWOS religiously- the theme music began playing in my head the moment I read "agony of defeat".

By: pompomtom

pompomtom — Wed, 16 May 2007 22:54:53 -0800

In Aus, we venerate Rick Disnick for a similar achievement.

By: maxwelton

maxwelton — Wed, 16 May 2007 23:03:20 -0800

pompomtom, I've seen that clip a million times in various "pwned" compilations, and never knew anything about it. Thanks!

By: bowline

bowline — Wed, 16 May 2007 23:06:41 -0800

Here is a little bit of info on the composer of the theme music. And you can listen to it here.

By: redteam

redteam — Wed, 16 May 2007 23:50:34 -0800

Nice one! I was just thinking about that clip and the fate of that guy the other day!

By: Goofyy

Goofyy — Thu, 17 May 2007 00:03:45 -0800

If only he could get paid for all those airings of his defeat.

By: Flashman

Flashman — Thu, 17 May 2007 01:28:19 -0800

These paintings do seem to portray how the world must look when you're flying past it at 80mph

By: DenOfSizer

DenOfSizer — Thu, 17 May 2007 04:01:10 -0800

I always thought if they were gonna update that montage, it would be fun to remove the hapless skiier and replace it with the Nancy Kerrigan knee-whacking incident that Tonya Harding arranged.

By: cribcage

cribcage — Thu, 17 May 2007 06:32:34 -0800

Can you imagine seeing that crash on live TV today and hearing the announcer exclaim, "Ohh, baby!!"

By: deanc

deanc — Thu, 17 May 2007 06:45:19 -0800

Every time I saw that clip, I WWOS, I always felt sorry for the poor guy who I assumed had seen that clip over and over again and had to relive that moment every week knowing that he had become the embodiment of "the agony of defeat."

By: bukvich

bukvich — Thu, 17 May 2007 07:16:31 -0800

This is a GREAT post!

By: milestogo

milestogo — Thu, 17 May 2007 09:17:18 -0800

great post...and he was on scrubs? whats the story with that?

By: Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese

Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese — Thu, 17 May 2007 09:21:01 -0800

This is great, thanks.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Thu, 17 May 2007 12:01:14 -0800

Thanks, that was really interesting.

By: LeLiLo

LeLiLo — Thu, 17 May 2007 12:32:57 -0800

Nice post. And a great name, Vinko Bogataj. It says on his biography page that Muhammad Ali asked him for his autograph!

By: acro

acro — Thu, 17 May 2007 17:12:37 -0800

(y/t) Werner Herzog: The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner.

By: philfromhavelock

philfromhavelock — Thu, 17 May 2007 17:29:51 -0800

I like his paintings. Fun post.