1948 Summer Olympics In Los Angeles
The 1984 Summer Olympics took place in the United States, more specifically in Los Angeles. It was a crucial time for the world’s super powers. Very few cities wanted to host the Summer Olympics due to the terrorist activity happening all over the world at the time. Also, one of the major bids, Montreal, was too in debt to take hosting seriously. So, it ended up coming down to two major cities, Los Angeles and Tehran. Tehran, the capital or Iran, has an alliance with Russia. Iran had a last minute policy change, due to the Iranian revolution taking place, and had to pull out of the selection process leaving only one city to take the bid, Los Angeles.
The United States Olympic Committee has submitted a bid for the 1976 and 1980 Summer Olympic games, but had never been chosen till now. The United States previously boycotted the 1980 Sumer Olympic games in Moscow, Russia. This was because the United States government did not agree with Soviet Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. Due to this, many communist countries decided to boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, as protest and revenge. This resulted in many races being canceled and lopsided medal winners due to the lack of participation from major superpowers like Russia, East Germany, and Cuba. A grand total of 14 countries decided to boycott due to their own political reasons. China, surprisingly decided to not boycott and become a major contributor to the Olympic games participant wise.
Due to the increase of terrorist activity, Los Angeles, and the United States as a whole, had to dramatically ramp up security measures. The security forces had a total number of around 17,000 personnel. Military and counter-terrorist units were deployed largely over Los Angeles. Also, police were called in from all over to further the security precautions. So, in general, the increase in world conflicts between the Palestinians and the Israelites caused an increase in terrorist activity which was a major threat that the United States had to face in the 1984 Olympics. The only terrorist threat was during the torch lighting ceremony where it was almost called off due to an impending bomb threat. Terrorist activity was hitting an all-time high, the majority of it being directed at Americans and United States’ property. A quote from an article stated, “attacks on U.S. property and persons rose by 60% in 1982. This type of terrorism is occurring in more countries with North America experiencing a significant increase in 1982.” Two main groups were a significant terrorist threat at the time of the 1984 Olympic Games, the Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide and the Abu Nidal group. Some of Armenia’s people wanted revenge. Mainly because of the Turkish people who committed a horrendous genocide against their population during World War I. They wanted to target the 1984 Summer Olympics primarily due to the fact that Turkish people would be there and that they could find shelter with the nearly 675,000 Armenians who inhabit the United States. This was a problem for the United States because their technique for retaliation is mainly through the use of bombings, which could hurt more than just their target.
The other organization was the Abu Nidal group, the most militant Palestinian group. America is the biggest supporter of Israel. Israel is the main enemy of the Abu Nidal group because of their beliefs on who should own what in the Middle East. This Olympics is the perfect target for the Abu Nidal group because they could seek revenge on the Israelis and their ally, the United States.
Of all the athletes in the 1984 Summer Olympic games, Daley Thompson from Great Britain, was probably one of the biggest stars. He won the gold medal in the decathlon, basically an event that incorporates all aspects of track and field. It’s a controversy because he only won those medals during boycotted Olympics with less competition. Carl Lewis, an American track and field star, won gold in the 100 meter, 200 meter, 400-meter relay, and the long jump. In the future Olympics he proved to be one of the most dominating athletes in track and field of all time. Greg Louganis from the United States won gold in two diving events, the 3mspringboard and the 10m platform, at the young age of 16.
None of these athletes stood out politically, but only in their far superiority in the sport they competed in. Class, ethnicity, and race didn’t have a major role in the 1984 Summer Olympics. Gender did have some sort of a part though in a sport called cycling. A stride of progress was made for women all of the world when the women’s individual road race was added. This was the first women’s cycling event in Olympic games history. (Took place mainly in Mission Viejo, California and there were approximately 45 competitors from 16 nations. Other than that, the rest took its course with women dominating gymnastics per usual.
The 1984 Summer Olympics revolutionized the rest of the Olympic games for the better. This games were one of the most economically successful Olympics in history. This article stated that “in particular the building of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, along with a new commercial model and heightened interest of the media in these two Olympic spectacles played in changing the hosting of the Games.” They commercialized the Olympic games by putting the Olympic symbol, among other things, on merchandise and sold it around the world. This was the first time that America’s crown jewel, capitalism, had a huge and beneficial impact of the Olympic games as a whole.
Peter Ueberroth revolutionized the Olympic games through his business expertise. He took advantage of our superior technology and made sponsorships with ABC. He also got the universities and public transportation to work with the committee as well. This netted Los Angeles a whopping profit of around 200 million dollars. This was the first Summer Olympic games to make a profit ever in the history of the organization. There wasn’t much propaganda in the 1984 Summer Olympic games, primarily due to it being in the United States. There was a lot of patriotism displayed via American flags and other stereotypical American things, but none were specifically targeted to say that our country was better than another. Our displays of political and societal strength were mainly showcased through other means, like our newly built, Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, among other obvious things.
Other countries did use propaganda and censorship though. Romania, whose mass media was controlled entirely by communist Russia, had competed in the games and got second despite the rest of the communist countries boycotting. Ceausescu, the leader of Romania at the time, wanted to convey to his people how well they were doing without being censored by countries not participating. This was done through newspaper articles. Romanian’s citizens would wait to hear about how well they were doing though the next day’s newspaper.
The high visibility of the 1984 Summer Olympic Games did not expose our country to political criticism. If anything the high visibility came into the United States favor. This is due to it causing an increase in popularity which had a direct effect on how well the games did financially and economically. This would show the rest of the world that our political system was for the best since nothing but positive things came out of this Olympic Games, besides the Communist countries boycotting.
