

Paul..."Eat my Shorts!"...

Bogataj was competing as a Yugoslavian entrant at the Ski-flying World Championships in Oberstdorf, West Germany (now Germany) on March 21, 1970. A light snow had begun falling at the start of the event, and by the time Bogataj was ready for his third jump, the snow had become quite heavy. Midway down the ramp for that jump, Bogataj realized that the conditions had made the ramp too fast. He attempted to lower his center of gravity and stop his jump, but instead lost his balance completely and rocketed out of control off the end of the ramp, tumbling and flipping wildly, and crashing through a light retaining fence near a crowd of stunned spectators before coming to a halt. Despite the ferocity of the crash, Bogataj suffered only a mild concussion ...
It is likely that Vinko Bogataj's crash would have remained obscure had a film crew from Wide World of Sports not been on hand to record the event ...
Throughout the show's long history, various images were used for the other parts of the narration, including for "The thrill of victory...", which directly preceded the above phrase and was often accompanied by images of the celebrating team at the most recent Super Bowl or World Cup. But for those many years after that point, the "agony of defeat" was always illustrated by Bogataj's failed jump. (Later on, other clips were added to the "agony of defeat", but Bogataj's crash was always featured and always the first played.) ...
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