1984 Winter Olympics

XIV Olympic Winter Games

Logo of the 1984 Winter Olympics[lower-alpha 1]
Host city	Sarajevo, Yugoslavia
Nations	49
Athletes	1,272 (998 men, 274 women)
Events	39 in 6 sports (10 disciplines)
Opening	8 February
Closing	19 February
Opened by	President Mika Špiljak
Cauldron	Sanda Dubravčić
Stadium	Koševo Stadium
Winter
← Lake Placid 1980 Calgary 1988 →
Summer
← Moscow 1980 Los Angeles 1984 →

The 1984 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XIV Olympic Winter Games (French: XIV^es Jeux olympiques d'hiver; Serbo-Croatian: XIV. zimske olimpijske igre / XIV Зимске олимпијске игре; Macedonian: XIV Зимски олимписки игри), was a winter multi-sport event which took place from 8–19 February 1984 in Sarajevo, SFR Yugoslavia. Other candidate cities were Sapporo, Japan; and Gothenburg, Sweden.

It was the first Winter Olympic Games held in a socialist state. It was also the second Olympics overall, as well as the second consecutive Olympics, to be held in a socialist country after the 1980 Summer Olympics were held in Moscow, Soviet Union. The only other games that have since been held in a socialist state are the 2008 Summer Olympics held in Beijing and 2014 Summer Youth Olympics in Nanjing, and the 2022 Winter Olympics which will be held in Beijing. All of these have been in China. The Sarajevo games have also been the only Olympics so far to be hosted by a city with mainly Muslim population. During the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, numerous newspapers drew attention to the Games neglected venues as it was the 30th anniversary of the 1984 Winter Olympics.

Host city selection

The host city for the XIV Winter Olympics was announced on 18 May 1978 during an 80th session of the International Olympic Committee in Athens, Greece. Sarajevo was selected over Sapporo, Japan (which hosted the games 12 years earlier) by a margin of three votes. Gothenburg was the first city in Sweden to lose a Winter Olympics bid, as other Swedish cities such as Falun and Östersund would later lose their consecutive bids to Calgary, Albertville, Lillehammer, Nagano, and Salt Lake City respectively. Sarajevo, capital of present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina, was part of the united Yugoslavia at the time.

1984 Winter Olympics bidding results[1]
City	Country	Round 1	Round 2
Sarajevo	Yugoslavia	31	39
Sapporo	Japan	33	36
Gothenburg	Sweden	10	—

Torch relay

Olympic torch Sarajevo 1984

The torch relay for the 1984 Winter Olympics started in Olympia and then proceeded by airplane to Dubrovnik. The total distance of the torch relay through Yugoslavia was 5,289 kilometres (3,286 mi) (plus 2,879 kilometres (1,789 mi) of local routes). There were two main routes – one in the west (Split – Ljubljana – Zagreb – Sarajevo with 2,602 kilometres (1,617 mi) of length) and the other in the east (Skopje – Novi Sad – Belgrade – Sarajevo with 2,687 kilometres (1,670 mi) of length). The final torchbearer, from a total of 1600, was figure skater Sanda Dubravčić, who received the torch from skier runner Ivo Čarman. Today one of the two original torches is in Slovenia in a private collection in Žalec, Slovenia. Also 20 more torches are in Greece owned by individual athletes, who were the torchbearers from Ancient Olympia to the nearby military airport and from Athens Domestic Airport to the Panathinaikon Stadium where the Ceremony of handing over the Olympic Flame to the Sarajevo Olympic Games Committee occurred.

Panoramic view of Koševo Stadium during the 1984 Winter Olympics opening ceremony.

Highlights

• The Olympic flag was raised upside down during the opening ceremony by mistake.^[2]
• First Games under the presidency of Juan Antonio Samaranch.
• The 20 kilometre race was added to women's Nordic skiing.
• Skier Jure Franko won Yugoslavia's first Winter Olympic medal; a silver in the giant slalom.
• Marja-Liisa Hämäläinen won all three individual cross-country races for women.
• Gaétan Boucher and Karin Enke each won two gold medals in speed skating, while East German women won all but three out of the twelve medals in the sport.
• Austria, usually a formidable winter sports nation, won only one bronze medal.
• Biathlete Eirik Kvalfoss earned a complete set of medals.
• Twin brothers Phil and Steve Mahre took first and second place in the slalom.
• Torvill and Dean of Great Britain earned across-the-board perfect scores for artistic impression in the free dance ice dancing competition, a feat that was never matched.^[3]
• The gold medals for Figure Skating were split among four nations. While Torvill and Dean won the Ice Dancing Competition for the UK, Elena Valova and Oleg Vasiliev of the Soviet Union won the Pairs Competition, Scott Hamilton scored Men's gold for the United States, and Katarina Witt won the first of two consecutive gold medals for East Germany in Ladies Figure Skating.
• Disabled skiing was a demonstration sport for the first time.
• Bill Johnson became the first American to win an Olympic downhill event.
• Lamine Guèye of Senegal was the first Black African skier to compete in the Winter Olympics.
• The closing ceremony was held indoors in the figure skating venue. The next time the closing ceremony for the Winter Games was held indoors was the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Official mascot

Readers of Yugoslav newspapers were asked to choose the mascot for the 1984 Winter Olympics from a list of six finalists. The winner was Vučko, the little wolf, designed by Slovenian designer and illustrator Jože Trobec. The other finalists were a chipmunk, a lamb, a mountain goat, a porcupine, and a snowball.^[4] The Vučko is a long-time symbol of Sarajevo.

Venues

Bjelašnica alpine mountain

Igman Olympic Jumps

Olympic Symbol damaged during the Bosnian War

Competitive events

There were 39 events contested in 6 sports (10 disciplines).

Calendar

All dates are in Central European Time (UTC+1)

February		7th Tue	8th Wed	9th Thu	10th Fri	11th Sat	12th Sun	13th Mon	14th Tue	15th Wed	16th Thu	17th Fri	18th Sat	19th Sun	Events
Ceremonies			OC											CC	N/A
Alpine skiing								1	1		2	1		1	6
Biathlon						1			1			1			3
Bobsleigh					●	1						●	1		2
Cross country skiing				1	1		1	1		1	1		1	1	8
Figure skating					●		1	●	1	●	1		1		4
Ice hockey		●		●		●		●		●		●		1	1
Luge				●	●	●	2			1					3
Nordic combined						●	1								1
Ski jumping							1						1		2
Speed skating				1	2		1	1	1	1	1		1		9
Daily medal events				2	3	2	7	3	4	3	5	2	5	3	39
Cumulative total				2	5	7	14	17	21	24	29	31	36	39
February		7th Tue	8th Wed	9th Thu	10th Fri	11th Sat	12th Sun	13th Mon	14th Tue	15th Wed	16th Thu	17th Fri	18th Sat	19th Sun	Total events

Medal count

These are the top ten nations that won medals at the 1984 Winter Games.

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	East Germany (GDR)	9	9	6	24
2	Soviet Union (URS)	6	10	9	25
3	United States (USA)	4	4	0	8
4	Finland (FIN)	4	3	6	13
5	Sweden (SWE)	4	2	2	8
6	Norway (NOR)	3	2	4	9
7	Switzerland (SUI)	2	2	1	5
8	Canada (CAN)	2	1	1	4
	West Germany (FRG)	2	1	1	4
10	Italy (ITA)	2	0	0	2
Totals (10 nations)		38	34	30	102

Participants

A then record of 49 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) entered athletes at the 1984 Winter Olympic Games.

Egypt, Monaco, Puerto Rico, Senegal, and the British Virgin Islands participated in their 1st Winter Olympic Games.

The People's Republic of China ended its boycott of the Olympic Games over the controversy regarding the IOC's recognition of the Republic of China. The Republic of China (Taiwan) then competed as Chinese Taipei for the first time.

Many smaller countries competed in these games, due to the funding program created by the IOC. The IOC decided that it would cover all expenses for one male and one female athlete, per country. This allowed countries with smaller athletic budgets to participate in the Games.

Gallery

See also

• 1984 Winter Paralympics
• 1984 Summer Paralympics
• 1984 Summer Olympics

• Winter Olympic Games
• Olympic Games
• International Olympic Committee
• List of IOC country codes

Notes

Notes

Citations

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to 1984 Winter Olympics.

• "Sarajevo 1984". Olympic.org. International Olympic Committee.
• "Results and Medalists — 1984 Winter Olympics". Olympic.org. International Olympic Committee.
• Official Report from the Organizing Committee on the AAFLA website
• Olympic Review 1984 – Official results
• Official website
• The program of the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics