Title: 1984 Summer Olympics boycott - Wikipedia
Headings: 1984 Summer Olympics boycott
1984 Summer Olympics boycott
Contents
Announcement of boycott
Revenge hypothesis
Soviet doping plan
Boycotting countries
Non-boycotting Marxist-Leninist countries
Alternative events
See also
References

Content: Revenge hypothesis
Jimmy Carter declared that the United States would boycott the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, with 65 other countries joining the boycott. This was the largest Olympic games boycott ever. In 1984, three months before the start of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, the Soviet Union declared it would "not participate" in the Games. The Soviets cited a number of reasons, namely the commercialization of the games which, in their opinion, went against the principles of the Olympic movement (indeed the XXIII Olympiad ended up being the first Olympics since 1932 to make a profit by a host country) and a claimed lack of security for their athletes. The issue of commercialization did gather some criticism from foreign delegations, who were unfamiliar with this trend in the Olympic movement. However, the IOC later declared the Games "a model for future Olympics" due to a surplus of US$223 million for the hosts, exclusively private funding (unlike Moscow Olympics that were state-funded), and relying on existing venues instead of building new ones. The majority viewed the boycott as more of a retaliatory move by the Soviets. Most of the world's media interpreted the Soviet boycott as retaliation for the US boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games, which had been in response to the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, whereas the Soviet media repeated the government line that the boycott was a safety measure to protect their own athletes. However, no threat to Eastern Bloc athletes was ever discovered, and the athletes from the Eastern Bloc country that did attend the 1984 games in Los Angeles—Romania—encountered no problems, and in fact were widely cheered above all other visiting nations at the Opening Ceremonies when they marched into the Coliseum. Romania ended up finishing third in overall medal count at the Games.