Fifty-two years after the “Agony of Defeat”, a Slovenian ski jumper visits NH
For those old enough to remember, the vision of the dark, grainy figure seen plummeting through the air 52 years ago will last forever.
“The agony of defeat,” said “Wide World of Sports” sports reporter Jim McKay, describing the action on the ski jump that snowy, windy day in West Germany.
are you with me Do you see some poor person turned into a rag doll on national television, an indelible image that has come to represent the pain of loss, that has such a mess that it is still with many of us today, dusting off and popping up here and there when someone mentions the phrase?
The grainy footage of this accident made him famous. It became part of the introduction to ABC’s “Wide World of Sports.” Various versions over the years have featured boxers with their arms raised or Mario Andretti spraying champagne after winning a race as part of the “Thrill of Victory” section.
Vinko Bogataj was used as a visual illustration for the agony of defeat that was etched into the collective consciousness of sports fans across the country.
“In real time, at the beginning, he really didn’t realize what a big deal it was,” Matevz Pintar, a 21-year-old student in Slovenia, who was more like summarizing than translating his grandfather, said via Zoom. thoughts from thousands of miles away in Hopkinton.
“Later it dawned on him what a big deal it was,” Pintar said. “You have to be really famous, really like a big deal to be asked for an autograph.”
Muhammad Ali was an usher at the event 11 years after the jump. The signatory was Vinko Bogataj.
Bogataj was sitting on the couch in the Hopkinton home of Bill and Leci McCrillis this week, relaying his thoughts on a computer screen to his granddaughter Živa Pintar, an 18-year-old student at a Slovenian high school; and her brother Matevz, a 21-year-old student at the local college.
They answered me in English, which they started learning in the fifth grade. Their English was solid. They live in Bled, with picturesque views, which is what Bogataj is doing now. He paints landscapes and sells them.
He fondly remembers what happened to him on March 7, 1970 in Oberstdorf, West Germany. In fact, he enjoys it so much that the ski jumping community in Andover, Newport and Lebanon had enough connections to ask the notorious ski jumper to be their guest of honor.
The Granite State is home to Jeff Hastings and Mike Holland, two internationally known jumpers and perhaps the best New Hampshire has ever had. Bogataj served as the originator of the Hastings event nearly 30 years ago. Additionally, Upper Valley’s Peter Graves is one of the media’s focal points at the World Cup.
That was enough to put something together. To introduce a man who has stayed with many of us after all these years.
There is a golf tournament and prize giving on Friday at Eastman Golf Links in Grantham. Saturday night’s dinner will be at the Fireside Inn in West Lebanon.
It’s a reunion of jumpers from decades past, promoting penniless and raising money to keep his already weak pulse alive.
Bogataj donated three of his paintings for sale. He’s this weekend’s VIP, celebrity guest star, another example of a picture being worth far more than 1000 words. This lasts a lifetime.
“He says that he wouldn’t be here if he didn’t like it,” Bogataj said, according to Matevž. “It’s a beautiful adventure. He participates in World Cup matches every year as a starter. He’s still connected to everything.”
Bill and Leci McCrillis offered to host Bogataj at the beginning of his journey. Bill was a ski jumper at Newport High School in the early 1980s. He is a member of the largest show jumping organizations in the Granite State. He is 57. He grew up with this intro.
“We were thinking about who we could bring in who was famous and famous,” McCrillis said. “(Graves) put his hand out and said yes. A lot of people remember what happened to him.”
His English was basically non-existent. He had a full head of white hair, wore jeans and had huge hands, a pair of monsters with fingers as thick as meat sausages.
Bogataj was not, and never has been, a star at the rally in Oberstdorg, West Germany. At least not in the way others have claimed fame.
As he descended the runway, perhaps two seconds before he overturned, just a few feet from the takeoff point, McKay called him one of the “younger ones” and noted that Bogataj had already crashed on the previous landing. .
Light snow began to fall as Bogataj approached the gate for his third and final run. The snow was heavy, the slope was fast. Too fast actually.
A grainy video shot by ABC shows Bogatai falling back as he tries to focus on the center. He’s still sliding on his back on the jump, then his skis spin as he falls off the lip.
The rich man, suspended in the air, flips his head over his skis, but is lucky to land on his side, not his head. He bounces off the ground into an upright position, his body lifeless, before disappearing into the crowd of onlookers.
So what in the wide, wide world of sports were his injuries? Broken ankle, concussion.
“He says he remembers almost everything like the beginning,” Ziva said. “He doesn’t remember the actual fall, but the next thing he remembers is when he hit the ground and all the people were rushing to him, ‘are you okay, are you okay?’ “
She said her grandfather’s first response was, “I have a little headache, but not really. He wanted to get up on his own. It didn’t seem like much to him.”
A few years later, the accident was added to the show’s intro. Wide World lasted nearly 40 years, enough time for people to see it, wonder how bad the damage was, and then stick with it in their minds.
Not so much in Slovenia.
“Actually, I haven’t known about his fall for a long time,” Ziva said. “I first learned three years ago. I heard he is very famous in America because he failed. It was like a surprise for me. Nobody really knows about the fall in Slovenia, but here it’s a big deal.”
There’s a lot here. The Pittsburgh Pirates invited Bogataj to throw out the first pitch at one of their home games. Ali, the greatest boxer of all time and one of the most important voices of the 1960s, sought him out. Not the other way around.
The star will shine again this weekend. Bogataj will need a translator, someone to convey what is inside him 52 years after he arrived in our living rooms via black and white televisions.
His grandchildren don’t quite understand what it’s all about. Something has gone wrong, at least in the United States.
“It was hard for me to understand that it was him,” Ziva said. “I saw the video and was shocked. It’s an epic fall.”