Dan Gurney was the first person to spray champagne at a sports event

1. How the 1967 photo became the origin myth

A striking Life/press photograph of Gurney spraying champagne at the 1967 Le Mans podium cemented the moment in public memory; museums and retrospectives describe Gurney’s action as “spontaneous” and credit him with starting the winner’s spraying ritual after he shook a magnum and doused team members, Carroll Shelby, Henry Ford II and nearby photographers ^{[2] [1] [3]}. Major outlets and obituaries repeated that account when Gurney died, and racing-focused sites and pieces from Top Gear to Autosport treat the 1967 act as the decisive origin story ^{[5] [3] [6]}.

2. The inconvenient earlier incident: Jo Siffert, 1966

Multiple sources acknowledge that a cork accidentally popped on a champagne bottle in 1966 at Le Mans—when Jo Siffert (with Colin Davis) celebrated an Index of Performance class win—and that the sudden burst sprayed a few people nearby, an episode reported as an accidental antecedent to the 1967 spectacle ^{[1] [4] [3]}. Wine and motorsport historians point to that 1966 mishap as evidence the physical act of champagne being released onto people had already occurred at Le Mans, even if not yet ritualized into a podium tradition ^[4].

3. From one photograph to a global ritual: how Gurney’s act spread

After Gurney’s exuberant 1967 spray was captured and publicized, commentators and historians trace a clear line from that image to champagne becoming a canonical part of motorsport podium ceremonies and later other sports; writers emphasize that Gurney’s deliberate, theatrical shaking of the bottle—rather than a mere accidental cork pop—normalized spraying as a celebratory performance ^{[5] [7] [3]}. Industry and cultural pieces underline the role of press coverage, sponsorship (e.g., Moët & Chandon), and television in turning one moment into an enduring spectacle ^{[7] [8]}.

4. Reconciling credit: invention vs. popularization

The evidence in the sources supports a nuanced claim: Jo Siffert’s 1966 accidental cork pop appears to be the earliest recorded instance of champagne unintentionally spraying people at Le Mans ^{[4] [3]}, while Dan Gurney’s 1967 deliberate and widely photographed spraying transformed that happenstance into an ostentatious ritual and thus popularized the practice across motorsport ^{[1] [2] [5]}. Most modern accounts and museum records therefore credit Gurney with starting the tradition in the sense of institutionalizing and publicizing it, even as they acknowledge the 1966 precursor ^{[1] [2] [3]}.

5. Disputes, caveats and what the sources do not prove

Sources converge on the sequence—1966 accidental pop, 1967 deliberate spray—but none in the provided set prove that no other, undocumented champagne-splashing incidents occurred earlier in smaller events or other sports; the claim that Gurney was the absolute first person ever to spray champagne at any sports event rests on the available Le Mans-centered records and the photographary record rather than exhaustive archival proof across all sports ^{[1] [4] [3]}. Reporting outlets, museums and encyclopedias uniformly credit Gurney with starting the modern motorsport podium ritual while acknowledging Siffert’s 1966 mishap as an antecedent ^{[2] [9] [10]}.

Conclusion: best-supported formulation

The most accurate summary, based on the provided reporting, is that Dan Gurney did not invent the physical act of champagne spraying—Jo Siffert’s 1966 cork accident preceded him—but Gurney’s deliberate, photographed 1967 spraying at Le Mans is what converted that accident into the televised, ritualized podium tradition now associated with motorsport and other sports worldwide ^{[4] [1] [3] [2]}.