March 7, 1970, 50 years ago: Vinko Bogataj achieves an unusual kind of fame, and he doesn't even know it. And it wasn't by winning. It was by losing, disastrously.
The 22-year-old native of Brezovica, in what is now the independent nation of Slovenia, was competing for Yugoslavia in the World Ski Flying Championships in Oberstdorf, in the Bavarian Alps of what was then West Germany, on the border of Austria. (Such was the nature of the multiethnic, multireligious Yugoslavia that Bogataj's hometown was closer to Oberstdorf than it was to the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade, now in Serbia.)
The event was covered by American network ABC, for its program Wide World of Sports, even though there were no American competitors. The show's introduction was narrated by the show's host, Jim McKay, and written by Stanley Ralph Ross, who later wrote for the TV shows Batman and The Monkees, and co-created the 1975-79 Wonder Woman TV show:
Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport: The thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat, the human drama of athletic competition! This is ABC's Wide World of Sports!
Going into the March 21, 1970 broadcast, the scene used to symbolize "the agony of defeat" in their opening montage was of a downhill skier falling. Perhaps this was foreshadowing. That day, they broadcast the World Ski Flying Championships, contested 2 weeks earlier.
A light snow had begun falling at the start of the competition, and by the time Bogataj was ready for his third jump on the Heini Klopfer Hill, the snow had become quite heavy. Midway down the inrun for his jump, Bogataj realized that the conditions had made the ramp too fast. He attempted to lower his center of gravity and slow his jump. Instead, he lost his balance completely, and hurtled out of control off the end of the inrun, tumbling and flipping wildly, and crashing through a light retaining fence near a crowd of spectators before coming to a halt.
ABC's announcer was Bud Palmer, a Princeton graduate who played for the early New York Knicks before moving into broadcasting. He said, "Lot of speed on that track now. Look out! Look at him go! Oh! Oh, baby! What a terrible fall!"
Bogataj suffered a mild concussion and a broken ankle, and was competing again 6 weeks later. By that point, WWOS had begun using Bogataj's fall to represent "the agony of defeat" in the opening montage, a decision made by coordinating producer Dennis Lewin. The show kept that sequence as such until the end of its run in 1998.
When the show was preparing to celebrate its 20th Anniversary in 1981, they found him in Lesce, Slovenia, and invited him to come to America -- not an easy thing to do, since Yugoslavia was a Communist country. He was long retired from competition, a ski instructor, a forklift operator, and a painter, and had no idea that he was famous in America. When he was introduced at the anniversary dinner, he got a longer standing ovation than anyone -- even Muhammad Ali, who asked him for his autograph.
In 1991, for the show's 30th Anniversary, while on his way to an interview with Wide World of Sports about the incident, he got into a small automobile collision. His first line to the reporter was, "Every time I'm on ABC, I crash."
Vinko with one of his paintings
In his own country, he became known for his painting. He married and had 2 daughters. He is still alive.
