ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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The 1984 Olympic Games, officially known as the XXIII Olympics, were held in Los Angeles, United States, between July 28 and August 12, 1984. 6829 athletes (5263 men and 1566 women) from 140 countries participated, competing in 21 sports and 221 specialties.

Despite a total of 14 states, the absence of countries that used to be in the first positions of the medallion, such as the Soviet Union, East Germany and Bulgaria, was notable. In fact, at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games, the countries that were now playing the boycott had won 58 per cent of the total gold medals. In Los Angeles, Romania won the largest number of Olympic medals in its history.

The new era of the Olympic Games
After the news received from the money losses of the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games in Canada, no city came forward to try to host the 1984 Games, which posed a threat to the continuity of the Olympic Games since the World Wars. In the face of this critical situation, the United States appeared as a salvation to host the Olympics of that year.

It was initially thought of New York City and then Chicago, until it finally opted for Los Angeles. The city of Los Angeles, which had submitted its applications to host the 1976 and 1980 Games, renewed its candidacy for 1984 in 1978.

After seeing the bad economic consequences inherited by the 1976 Olympics, the City of Los Angeles City Council, together with the American Olympic Committee, designed and offered in their candidacy a plan that made money for the Olympic Games. It was the first city to make profits in the Olympics that became an example to follow for subsequent headquarters: Los Angeles used existing facilities and stadiums that only required minor adaptations and remodeling and used funds from private companies to organize the Olympics; only two new centres, a velodrome and an Olympic pool had to be built. The city made a profit of $200 million ($500 million in 2020).

Olympic torch

3636 relevists carried the Olympic torch on a 15,000-kilometre tour that began on 7 May in Olympia (Greece) with a private ceremony attended only by members of the press and officials of the Greek Olympic Committee, the Organizing Committee and IOC. The torch was transported by helicopter to Athens and from there by plane to the United States, where the tour of that country began on May 8. The route followed, in broad terms, the following route:

New York - Boston - Philadelphia - Washington - Detroit - Chicago - Indianapolis - Atlanta - St. Louis - Dallas - Denver - Salt Lake City - Seattle - San Francisco - San Diego - Los Angeles.

The tour ended on July 28, with the ceremony