The people who follow and cover the Olympic Games are calling the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics a rousing success. After the pandemic Olympics of Tokyo (summer of 2021) and then Beijing (winter of 2022) were played before less-than-capacity crowds at a lot of venues, the Olympics needed to feel big again. The Olympics needed huge crowds and a jolt of enthusiasm to capture the popular imagination once again. Paris, in the eyes of most — including longtime sports commentators Bob Costas and Al Michaels — made the Olympics feel big again. The Paris Summer Games felt like a restorative event for the Olympics as a whole. Costas made the comparison between Paris 2024 and the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics as an event which rejuvenated the Olympics. Costas explained that after the terrorist attack at Munich 1972, the budgetary disaster of Montreal 1976, and the boycott of Moscow 1980, the Olympics needed a boost in 1984. Los Angeles delivered it.
Now that Los Angeles is next up for the Summer Olympics in 2028, there’s no better time to relive the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games. Go back in time with this expansive gallery from our photo archives: