1984 Winter Olympics

XIV Olympic Winter Games
Logo of the 1984 Winter Olympics[a]
LocationSarajevo, Yugoslavia (now in Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Nations49
Athletes1,272 (998 men, 274 women)
Events39 in 6 sports (10 disciplines)
Opening8 February 1984
Closing19 February 1984
Opened by
Closed by
Cauldron
StadiumKoševo Stadium
Winter
Summer

The 1984 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XIV Olympic Winter Games (Serbo-Croatian and Slovene: XIV. Zimske olimpijske igre; Cyrillic: XIV Зимске олимпијске игре; Macedonian: XIV Зимски олимписки игри, romanizedXIV Zimski olimpiski igri) and commonly known as Sarajevo '84 (Cyrillic: Сарајево '84; Macedonian: Сараево '84), were a winter multi-sport event held between 8 and 19 February 1984 in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.[b] It was the first Winter Olympic Games held in a Slavic language-speaking country, as well as the only Winter Olympics held in a communist country before the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China. It was the second consecutive Olympic Games held in a communist country, after the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union.

The Games were held in Sarajevo and at neighbouring resorts in the Dinaric Alps located less than 25 kilometers from the city. At the first days of the Games, the sports program was disrupted by extreme weather conditions and the alpine ski events started four days later than planned.

The Games brought together 1272 athletes from 49 countries, which represents a significant increase compared to 1980. Athletes participated in six sports and ten disciplines for a total of thirty-nine official events, one more than four years earlier. Seven National Olympic Committees sent their athletes to the Olympic Winter Games for the first time, including Egypt, British Virgin Islands, Monaco, Puerto Rico and Senegal. Finland's Marja-Liisa Hämäläinen, who won all three individual races in cross-country skiing, earned the most individual medals of the Games. The host country Yugoslavia won its first-ever medal at the Winter Games after alpine skier Jure Franko came second in the giant slalom. East Germany, which won all gold and silver medals in women's speed skating and bobsleigh, topped the medal table for the first time with twenty-four medals overall, nine of which were gold.

The 1984 Winter Olympics, considered a success, made it possible to further modernize Sarajevo and develop winter sports in Yugoslavia, but the war in Yugoslavia, which broke out in 1992, heavily damaged the city and the Olympic facilities. Some sites have been renovated after the war but others remain abandoned, the former bobsleigh/luge track being one of the more well-known abandoned sites.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).