History

In 1932, Los Angeles created the Olympic Village. In 1984, the city's organizing committee, led by Peter Ueberroth, created an entirely new model for the games.

The 1984 Olympics were the first since 1896 to be organized without major government financing. Ueberroth led a much-criticized drive for private money that even included sponsorship of the Olympic torch run, at $3,000 a kilometer.

The drive was so successful that the Games actually turned a profit of well over $200 million.

The Soviet Union boycotted the Olympics, in retribution for the U. S.-led boycott of its 1980 Games, and was joined by 13 other nations. Nevertheless, a record 140 nations competed at Los Angeles, compared to only 80 at Moscow, and the number of athletes reached nearly 7,000, very close to the previous record.

The women's program continued to expand with the addition of the marathon in track and the road race in cycling, along with two sports for women only, rhythmic gymnastics and synchronized swimming.

Although the Soviet-led boycott had much less impact on the total numbers than the boycott of 1980, or even the African boycott of 1976, it had a major impact on competition. The 14 Soviet bloc countries that stayed away had won more than half the gold medals in 1976.

The sports most affected were gymnastics, weightlifting, freestyle wrestling, and women's track. The U. S. team was the chief beneficiary, increasing its medal total to 174, nearly double its total of 94 medals in 1976.

The presence of the boycotting countries wouldn't have had any effect on Carl Lewis's record-tying performance, though. Before the Olympics, Lewis had vowed to match Jesse Owens' 1936 feat of winning gold medals in both sprints, the long jump, and the 4x100-meter relay. He did it with relative ease. Lewis won the 100-meter dash by 8 feet, the largest margin in Olympic history. His 200-meter victory margin was an ample 4 feet, his gold medal long jump was nearly a foot better than anyone else's, and he anchored the relay team to a world record 37.83 seconds, nearly 8/10 of a second better than second-place Jamaica.

Women's gymnastics produced its first U. S. heroine, 16-year-old Mary Lou Retton, who scored two perfect 10s while winning the all-around championship. She also won a silver and two bronze medals.

Sebastian Coe of Great Britain became the first man to repeat as 1500-meter medalist and Pertti Karpinnen of Finland won the single sculls event for the third straight time.

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