FELIX SANCHEZ                                 

2000 NCAA 400 IH Champion (48.41)

2004 Olympic Champion

Memorial tribute: Jim McKay, T&F linked in history

 

                                                      

Jim McKay, ABC-TV’s legendary sports announcer who covered 12 Olympics and won 13 Emmy awards, died this past weekend. As anchor for ABC’s Wide World of Sports weekly show McKay did the first program at the 1961 USA/USSR track and field dual meet in Philadelphia. It was an important beginning for our sport and for Mckay and ABC-TV:

 

The international duals gave ABC respect … Underscored by the political overtones of the Cold War the USSR and the United States began, in 1958, a series of dual track and field meets that stimulated the sport in America. 

 

One of the hallmarks of ABC-TV’s Wide World of Sports was the show’s coverage of the US-USSR dual meets.

 

       

Jim McKay, the show’s host for over 25 years remembers,  “We did receive a lot of favorable comments for those shows, not only for going inside the Soviet Union, but also for bringing all of our own equipment. People began to talk about ‘Wide World’ s a permanent fixture at ABC. Those USA-USSR meets gave us respectability.”

 

 ... The 1961 dual between Russia and the USA was in Moscow and covered for the first time by ABC-TV’s Wide World of Sports. Valery Brumel broke the world high jump record with a last attempt leap of 7’4 ¼” in front of 100,000 Russians prompting Jim McKay, the program’s legendary announcer for over 25 years, to say, “At this moment, Brumel rivals Cosmonaut Yrui Gagarin as a national hero in the Soviet Union.” Brumel went on to set world records at the next two dual meets between the nations-7’5 ¾”in Lennin Stadium in 1963(dirt take-off).

-Wide World of Sports 25th Anniversary Special Collector’s Edition-1987