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That poor "agony of defeat" guy...became famous as an icon of losers, and he wasn't even really all that hurt by his accident.
That shot of Olga Korbut on the balance beam was always incredible...such an amazing illustration of gritting it out under pressure.
Dorothy Hamill flying into her Hamill Camel..."Brought to you by Tuborg Gold, the golden beer of Danish kings..."
Evel Knievel jumping over stuff...barrel jumpers on ice...so much boxing that sometimes it seemed like "Wide World of Boxing"...and who could ever forget the Acapulco cliff divers and the World Wristwrestling Championships from Petaluma, California?
If you were an American fan of a "non-mainstream sport" of any kind, this show, along with CBS Sports Spectacular and NBC Sportsworld, offered you what was, back in those days, your only chance to see that sport on TV, a few times a year. And of course it would share its coverage time with some other sport. But in those three-network days, in which only people in the mountains had cable, and they only used it to pick up broadcast stations that were blocked by the topography, you couldn't expect more.
In later years, we'd get ESPN, ESPN 2, a zillion specialized local and national sports channels, dish packages that allow you to pay extra to follow whatever team or sport you like, and coverage on the Internet. But there was once a time when, if you really wanted to follow figure skating, gymnastics, drag racing, skiing or boxing, this was how you did it.
And, oh year, they showed the Harlem Globetrotters once a year.
We'll miss you, Jim.
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