Yes. To the point where we GenXers often think of it (sometimes aloud) when we (say) take off our boots after a long hike: in a Brooklyn accent, “da agony of da feet” 
Definitely Boomers.
As a quick aside, I was surprised to find out that ABC’s Wide World of Sports ran through 1997. I would have sworn it was over about ten years previous to that. The more interesting thing, at least to me, I found was that the footage over “thrill of victory” changed by season. One year it was a Little League team in red, another time a different team in blue, one year Ali, another Team USA hockey, another Jordan, etc. But “Agony of Defeat” guy was always Vinko Bogataj, at least since the early 70s (his jump was in 1970 as mentioned above). Before that, I was able to find a downhill skier wiping out for 1969’s intro, but Wikipedia also mentions footage of another ski jumper with a less dramatic wipeout previous to Bogataj as the “agony of defeat” footage.
The last weird thing (not so weird given how memory works) is that the Bogataj jump doesn’t look at all like my memory of it. I remembered the ski jump as much larger and the tumble much more dramatic. That ski jump looks positively puny and amateur compared to today’s ski jumps. I have no memory of the guy he almost clips on the way over, nor the crowd being that close.
Same. It was neat to be able to regularly see coverage of less usual sports. IIRC, I used to also enjoy American Sportsman, which aired just before WWS.
I remember Pele being carried off a soccer pitch, and Mario Andretti spraying champagne after winning a race. There are a lot of good visuals for the thrill of victory.
Nothing worked for the agony of defeat better than a ski jumper falling before he even got to the end of the jump.
Maybe Ben-Hur? From slave to national hero.
And, since 1997, fewer and fewer people have understood the joke in, “What in the Wide, Wide World of Sports is a-goin’ on out here?”
WWoS’s peak was in the 1970s, whenever they would have live Evel Knievel motorcycle jumps.
I remember ca. 2000 when a female soccer player celebrated her team’s victory by tearing off her shirt and running around the field in her bra. Some people were saying what a victory it was for women, when in fact it gave her 15 minutes of fame, as it should have.
Brandi Chastain, in 1999. She’s generally regarded as one of the best female soccer players in U.S. history, but that moment, and the photos of it, became what she’s known for by the general public.