1984 LA Olympic Athletics DVD's-Track Field Carl Lewis

1984 Olympic Games

The 1984 Olympics are well remembered for the Eastern Bloc boycott.  This boycott was precipitated by the American boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games.  Unfortunately this limited the competition in some of the events, however the ’84 games still saw many of the greatest athletes compete and a great number of records set. 

The first disc has a good number of qualifying events that set the stage for the finals.  The first of which, is the men’s triple jump where Al Joyner goes on to capture the gold medal.  Next up is the men’s 100m, and Carl Lewis’ first Olympic gold.  Lewis was attempting to become the first man to win 4 golds in Olympic athletics competition since Jesse Owens.  In the women’s short dash, Evelyn Ashford set the Olympic record in taking the win.  Edwin Moses kept his undefeated streak alive in the intermediates with his 89^th straight victory.  Valerie Brisco-Hooks dominated the women’s quarter as did Doina Melinte in the half mile.  In the men’s 800m Joaquim Cruz set a new Olympic record with his win.  The USA was able to capture two medals in the 800m with great performances by Kim Gallagher (women’s silver) and Earl Jones (men’s bronze).  The next two events also had Olympic records set, the men’s 110h and women’s javelin.  Roger Kingdom upsets Greg Foster in a very close finish to take the record in the high hurdles.  Tessa Sanderson claims gold for the UK, as she defeated greats Tiina Lilak and Fatima Whitbread.  The men’s 400m final was quite an interesting race.  The pre-Olympics favorite, Bert Cameron of Jamaica, had an amazing race in the semifinals where he limped for 20m and still was able to qualify for the finals.  Unfortunately, his muscle pull prevented he from taking part in the finals.  This left created an opening for Alonzo Babers who succeeded in winning the gold.  Maybe more impressive was the silver medal for Gabriel Tiacoh from the Ivory Coast.  Tiacoh became the first Olympic medalist ever from a West African country, and still to this day the only medal winner from the Ivory Coast.  The men’s 200m dash became Carl Lewis’ second Olympic gold as he led an American medal sweep and set his first Olympic record.  Throughout the first disc you will also see the men’s decathlon events where Daley Thompson succeeds in his medal quest and also sets a new Olympic record with his 10-event tally.  The disc concludes with Valerie Brisco-Hooks’ second gold medal, this one coming with a new OR in the 200m, making her the first athlete to complete the 200/400 double in a single Olympics. 

The first final on the 2^nd disc is the watered down women’s 100h.  This race was missing the top 12 athletes in the world due to the boycott, but was won with a tremendous performance by Benita Fitzgerald-Brown.  The women’s 3,000m was probably the most anticipated distance race of the games with the previous season’s hero in Mary Decker.  Decker had claimed the 1983 world championship 1500/3,000 double over her more ballyhooed opponents.  Now with the East boycotting and on home soil, she entered the year as the overwhelming favorite.  After struggling for much of the year, she decided to focus on the 3,000m and was the favorite along with Mauricica Puica of Romania.  The young upstart Zola Budd was also a candidate to take the title as she had just recently declared citizenship in the UK in order to compete.  At 18 the barefooted wonder had captivated the world with her skill.  Just over a mile into the race however, Budd and Decker got tangled up and Decker was unable to finish.  The rest of the way the crowd booed and unfortunately the race never lived up to the hype.  Puica was able to pull away for the comfortable victory in the last 300m.  Next on the track was the men’s steeplechase, where Julius Korir continued the Kenyan dominance of the event with his victory.  The American men fared quite well with Brian Diemer outkicking Henry Marsh to win the last American medal in the event.  In all four relays the Americans absolutely dominated and were not seriously challenged in any of them, accumulating one world record and two Olympic records.  The men won the 4 x 400m by well over a second with great legs by Ray Armstead and Alonzo Babers.  Carl Lewis anchored the 4 x 100m team to a new world record and his fourth gold of the games.  The women were challenged even less with the absence of the Soviets and the GDR.  The 4 x 100m team did narrowly miss the world and Olympic record with the fastest time ever run by a non-GDR team in history.  The 4 x 400m team was victorious by nearly 3 seconds and completed the race in a new Olympic record time.  The 1500m races conclude the set, as Seb Coe and Gabriella Dorio were victorious.

What a great DVD set this one proves to be.  Los Angeles provided a great backdrop for the 1984 Olympics.  There were some truly great performances to be seen and enjoyed by any track fan.  As always, please contact us with any questions at: athletics@email.com.  Thanks and enjoy the action!