from the New York Times:

Jim McKay, the genial ABC sports broadcaster who hosted 10 Olympic Games for the network over 28 years and the celebrated sports anthology series “Wide World of Sports“ for its first 25, died Saturday at his country estate in the horse country of Monkton, Md. He was 86.

Jim was one of the Founding Fathers in presenting motorsports on television.

R.I.P Jim McKay, he's one hellva of a Commentator. Once his last but exciting Indy-500 ABC commnetaries in '85, I was kept entertained by him. He shall be missed.

The host of Wide World of Sports. His memorable quote in the intro is the Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat. The sports world will miss him. McKay also did some F1 races on ABC with Jackie Stewart.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=3430672

Before the Indy 500 went live, he hosted the race once the race was run.

He will be missed.

As I recall, Wide World of Sports debuted as a summer replacement show in 1961 on, I think, Tuesday nights...One of their early shows had a segment on the 1961 Monaco GP with Phil Hill in the Ferrari Typo 161, Shark Nose....I have been hooked on F1 ever since.

RIP Jim!

The '72 Munich Olympics was McKay at his best.

RIP

A TRUE legand.
May God rest his soul...
Two things. I can remember listening to him do the Play by play if you will from The Islip Speedway Figure "8" race on WWS. He even made that interesting!
I had the pleasure to meet him once just through blind circumstance.
I just got finished playing golf at Shinnecock On L.I., and I went in the club house to use the mens room, by the way, I was a guest and probably wasn't suppose to be in there, but,There was a man all by himself enjoying a sniffter of something watching the sunset in the fall, and I heard a voice say 'how did you like the course'?
aaahhh. GREAT I said! to make a long story short we talked for about 5 mins. I said nice to meet you and went on my way home.
About half way down the L.I. Expressway I said..HOLY SH##, That was Jim McKay!
Just a regular guy.. a real nice man .
Something I'll never forget, even if it was only for 5 mins...