1984 Los Angeles

Los Angeles 1984

Archery

Artistic Gymnastics

Athletics

Basketball

Boxing

Diving

Football

Modern Pentathlon

Rhythmic Gymnastics

Rowing

Sailing

Swimming

Finland

France

Germany

Great Britain

Italy

Japan

Korea

Morocco

New Zealand

P. R. China

Romania

United States

The powerful story of how a revolutionary boxing experiment produced Teofilo Stevenson and a legacy of Cuban success at the Olympic Games.

Originals

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The People’s Fighters | Five Rings Films

No one in Morocco expected Nawal El Moutawakel to win the 400m hurdles event, but she believed, and that was enough.

Nawal EL MOUTAWAKEL

Los Angeles 1984 | Olympic Games

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Confidence was key for El Moutawakel

Steve Redgrave begins his incredible Olympic journey in Los Angeles at the age of 22 with debut gold in the Summer Games of 1984.

Steven REDGRAVE

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OLYMPIC DEBUTS: Redgrave quintet quest sets off in Los Angeles

Witness the greatest gymnastics moments from the Los Angeles 1984 Summer Olympic Games!

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Olympic Gymnastics Lookback - Los Angeles 1984

Carlos Lopes wins the men's marathon event during the 1984 Olympic Summer Games, bringing home Portugal's first gold.

Carlos LOPES

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Portugal's Lopes wins marathon | Los Angeles 1984

My first Olympic Games were in Tokyo in 1964 and that was very special\. It was a big deal for the city to be hosting the Games and everything was perfectly planned and perfectly carried out\. The Ceremony didn&rsquo;t seem to take as long as it did at later Games

Ed Burke: “The greatest honour that your nation can bestow upon you”

The sole candidate to stage the Olympic Summer Games 1984, the “City of Angels” was confirmed as host city at the 80th IOC Session on 18 May 1978, becoming just the third city to stage the modern Olympic Games twice, after Paris (1900 and 1924) and London (1908 and 1948).

Los Angeles 1984: An indelible legacy

“The time had truly come to bestow recognition upon the sporting youth of the United States for the effort they have made since Athens and for their ever\-brilliant and numerous contributions to Games past,” wrote Pierre de Coubertin in his Olympic Memoirs\. “It was for these three reasons that the

Los Angeles 1932 | Olympic Games

Los Angeles 1932: California welcomes the world

The huge popularity and participation rates in cycling on the Continent, in addition to the professional nature of the sport, made the level of competition of the very highest order\.

Grewal hits the high road to land gold

Fairhill was a promising young athlete when she was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident at the age of 22\. She was paralysed from the waist down\.

1984 Olympic Games. Los Angeles. Ref: B.T.S. Archery. NEROLI FAIRHALL, New Zealand.

Koreans win gold, as Kiwi Fairhill makes her mark

The summer of 1984 proved to be a golden one for the France and its footballers\.

1984 Olympic Games. Los Angeles. Ref: B.T.S. Soccer Final. FRANCE.2. vs. BRAZIL.0. FRANCE, Gold.

France adds Olympic gold to European title

With Steve Ovett and Seb Coe in the twilight of their running careers, Aouita was the first of a barrage of north African runners who would dominate the Olympics over a range of distances in the late 1980s and 1990s\.

Graceful Aouita heralds new age of distance running

Devastated at the loss in his favoured 800m days earlier by arch\-rival and fellow Briton Steve Ovett, Coe claimed the ultimate salvation by winning gold in the blue riband 1,500m\.

Coe defies critics to claim unique double

Just three months after her 16th birthday, the leggy jumper from Frankfurt stunned her more experienced counterparts by improving her personal best by almost two inches and snatching the gold medal on countback\.

Meyfarth returns for record second gold

The record books will show that Romania’s Maricica Puica won the gold medal on a sunny evening at the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, but that only tells a tiny fraction of the remarkable story\.

Puica triumphs after iconic Decker-Budd clash

A supremely gifted, and outspoken, athlete who turned decathlete after initially targeting a sprinting career, Thompson eventually went on to win two Olympic gold medals\.

Charismatic Thompson wins second decathlon gold

Louganis was given up by his young parents for adoption when he was just three months old\. He was raised in California, was ridiculed for the colour of his skin, experienced learning difficulties at school and even fell into alcohol abuse\.

Louganis dives his way into the record books

Women had never competed in the 400m hurdles at the Olympic Games prior to Los Angeles in 1984, and in becoming the inaugural winner El Moutawakel&rsquo;s win was as impressive as it was unexpected\.

El Moutawakel overcomes barriers to win hurdles gold

When Coutts arrived as an inexperienced 22\-year\-old at the 1984 Olympic regatta at Long Beach, California, he was not expected to vie for the title against the cream of the world’s Finn class sailors\.

Sailor Coutts begins his meteoric rise

Only Ethiopia of the continent’s powerhouses was missing because of the boycott at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles yet only six Africans made it to the final at the Memorial Coliseum\. Compare that to 12 years later when the first eight in Atlanta hailed from Africa\.

1984 Olympic Games. Los Angeles. Ref: B.T.S. 10.000 m. ALBERTO COVA, Italy, Gold.

Cova walks the walk

Lewis did indeed reach heights that few others ever have in the Games, but the diminutive Romanian gymnast Ecaterina Szabo eclipsed even him\.

Szabo bounces back from Retton defeat

Moses was the most elegant of 400m hurdlers, who required just 13 graceful steps between the obstacles as opposed to the 14 of most of his contemporaries and for a period he was literally unbeatable\.

Moses finishes with another golden flourish

The women’s marathon had never featured in the modern Olympics and was seldom run earlier in the century mainly due to health fears\.

Joan BENOIT

Benoit bounces back to take inaugural marathon gold

Kolbe was an outstanding rower with an explosive start and incredible commitment to his sport\. He won three Olympic silver medals at different Games but his achievements will unfortunately always play second fiddle to Karppinen\.

Karppinen completes sculling hat-trick

A few years later in the garden of the family home in New Jersey, the growing Lewis used a tape measure to mark out Bob Beamon&rsquo;s world long jump record and eyed the distance with some incredulity\.

Lewis matches Owens’ feat with gold rush

Only in the boycott year of 1980 had the Americans failed to sweep to gold in the event dating to the inaugural running when they were disqualified to hand Great Britain the title in 1912\.

Golden boy Lewis leads Americans to relay triumph

Japan dominated the event in the 1960s and despite many of the major gymnastics powerhouses being absent from the 1984 Games, Gushiken could genuinely claim to be the world’s best \- but only by a whisker\.

Gymnast Gushiken continues Japanese tradition of all-round greatness

The country had appeared in token form at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki and made its Winter Games bow at Lake Placid in 1980, but Los Angeles was the first time they had sent a meaningful team to the Summer Games; a mere 24 years before it topped the medal

Li marks China’s Olympic bow with gold

Seldom has an Olympic competitor been roared on by a home crowd quite like Mary Lou Retton in Los Angeles\. Every move, pirouette and spin was egged on by the vociferous home support, and she was to need every decibel to help her eclipse the supreme Romanian Ecaterina Szabo\.

Retton ends American jinx to lift all-around gold

Reading a book by his alpine skiing hero, Jean\-Claude Killy, Hegg took the great Frenchman’s advice and took up cycling as a means of strengthening the thighs for the incredible stamina and power required for lightning fast descents of the piste\.

Hegg strikes gold after swapping skis for wheels

In hindsight the change seems utterly logical; setting the competitors off at timed intervals according to their points accumulation so that the first man to cross the line for the final lung\-bursting 4km run would be the winner\.

Masala grabs last-gasp modern pentathlon gold

She also represents how fleeting and brief success at the top can be, with a short blast of intensity she left an indelible mark on the Olympic Games of Los Angeles in 1984\.

Focused Cohen blasts to double gold

However one West German swimmer with an astonishing wingspan and rangy swimming style which had earned him the nickname ‘The Albatross’ went some considerable way to ensuring the host nation did not get it all its own way\.

Giant Gross sparkles in Olympic pool

The Games organisers were determined not to let the Soviet\-led boycott of the Games distract from making it the greatest show on earth and all the razzamatazz Hollywood could muster made it one of the more memorable opening ceremonies ever seen\.

Hollywood fanfare welcomes world to Los Angeles

Los Angeles 1984 - Stories Mosaic

Eliud Kipchoge will attempt to win a third consecutive gold medal when he lines up in a Paris 2024 marathon that is primed to be one of the most challenging and beautiful in Olympic history. But the path to the reigning world record holder’s legend began long before, as other

Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia, running barefoot, draws away from Abdesselem Rhadi of Morocco near the finish of the marathon at the 1960 Rome Olympics. He went on to win with a new Olympic record time of 2 hours 15 minutes 16 seconds, becoming the first Ethiopian African Olympic gold medalist. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images)

Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia

Watch the eight most iconic Olympic marathons on video

Donato Sabia has died from COVID-19 at the age of 56, the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) has announced. on Wednesday (8 April).
The Italian twice reached the Olympic 800m final, finishing fifth in Los Angeles 1984 and seventh four years later in Seoul. His greatest triumph was winning gold at

Donato SABIA

Joaquim Cruz #093 of Brazil races to the gold medal against Edwin Koech #584, Sebastian Coe #359, Donato Sabia of Italy #520 and Earl Jones #903 during the final of the Men's 800 metres event at the XXIII Summer Olympics on 6th August 1984 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California, United States.(Photo by Tony Duffy/Getty Images)

Donato Sabia of Italy (520) passed away from Covid-19

800m Olympic finalist Donato Sabia dies of COVID-19 aged 56

Nine-time Olympic champion Carl Lewis believes athletics can be transformed into the sport of the future.
And the track and field star, now part of the coaching staff at the University of Houston, is taking a personal interest.
> "I recruit, and every single athlete (I speak to) says I

Olympic Games Los Angeles 1984

Los Angeles 1984Stories

All Stories

Watch the eight most iconic Olympic marathons on video

800m Olympic finalist Donato Sabia dies of COVID-19 aged 56

Carl Lewis pushing for athletics shake-up

Los Angeles 1984: An indelible legacy

Los Angeles 1932: California welcomes the world