Souzz and I are in the midst of a trip through Switzerland, Austria, and Germany. It’s been a great chance to experience new cultures, new cities, and new mountain ranges. We’ve also met up with great friends along the way in Henggart, Switzerland, and Lofer, Austria.
One of the things we’ve noticed during our travels is how much American culture is exported, and often it’s not our best. We’ve heard middling American rock music, seen ads for TV shows like Murder, She Wrote, walked past a Starbucks in a 16th century building, and spotted a lot of unremarkable American products. Interestingly enough, there are also a lot of foods specifically marketed as “American-style.” Don’t get me wrong, as I’m proud of a lot of what our country produces…but we didn’t find too much of that in our travels.
Perhaps a lesser known part of U.S. pop culture is the phrase that titles this blog, which American sports fans may recognize from the opening of ABC’s Wide World of Sports during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. If you aren’t familiar with the show, it ran for nearly 40 years and featured sports that would rarely get air time in the pre-cable era—sports like pro surfing, track and field, whitewater kayaking, and ski jumping.
In the Wide World of Sports’ opening (click here to see a 30 second version from the late 1970s), a voice-over says “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.” As the words “agony of defeat” are spoken, an unnamed ski jumper falls and flies off into the crowd—and an American catchphrase for epic failure is born.
By now you might be wondering what all that has to do with traveling in Europe, which is where the small Bavarian village of Oberstdorf comes in. We had planned to visit Oberstdorf because it offers amazing hiking and is somewhat off of the beaten path–hoping for an authentic experience where locals wouldn’t respond to our terrible German in perfect English. So far it’s been just what we were expecting (and yes, our German is still terrible).
As we were planning our day’s hikes via Google, we learned that the ski jump here in the village is where the “agony of defeat” crash happened during a World Cup competition in 1970. Thankfully, the Slovenian jumper that took that horrible fall, Vinko Bogataj, was not seriously injured. He returned to competition the next year, was later a professional ski instructor, and is now a very successful artist. It’s clear that he has not agonized much over that defeat.
There are many reasons to come to Oberstdorf, including the incredibly friendly people, the charming town itself, the hiking from the summit of the Nebelhorn (2224 meters), and a lot of other natural attractions (including the Breitachklamm, a fantastic stream-carved gorge). Not surprisingly, none of the reasons to come here have anything to do with the history of the ski jump.
Some years ago, Vinko Bogataj was invited by ABC to join in an anniversary celebration for the Wide World of Sports, since his fall had helped open the show for decades. When he got the call, Vinko had no idea what ABC was talking about.
Thankfully, there are at least a few parts of our culture that we have kept at home.
So cool to read about your adventures. That jump looks a little more challenging than the one at ski liberty 🙂 Have a great rest of your trip and keep writing. I like the XL American toast.
Thanks for commenting! We saw a few sights that reminded us of you, will send those along, and hope you had a fabulous birthday!
What beautiful Swiss Alps country roads, vistas and information. Love how well you capture the flavor of the locale and your friends:)
Thanks for reading and commenting…and we were missing your language skills on this trip! Attempts to say the word “three” in Swiss German were enough to entertain our hosts for quite some time. 🙂