THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH

The 1984 Los Angeles Games began on July 28 with an opening ceremony that saw a rocket man wearing a jetpack spectacularly flying around the Coliseum, before the Olympic cauldron was lit by Rafer Johnson, the 1960 Olympic decathlon champion and actor. The theme music for Chariots of Fire boomed around the stadium with President Ronald Reagan’s Hollywood grin sparkling for all to see.

A city famed for its sun and celebrities was staging its second Olympics following its hosting of the 1932 Games and led skilfully by its chief organiser, Peter Ueberroth, it was set to revolutionise the format of the event with the use of corporate sponsorship, private fundraising and money gained from selling television rights. After the terrorist-damaged Munich, debt-ridden Montreal and boycott-ruined Moscow Games, the Olympic brand was so damaged that only Los Angeles and Tehran showed any interest in holding the 1984 Games. With its grid-locked roads and racial tensions, LA looked an unlikely saviour for the Games as well. Yet it rose to the occasion by producing a dazzling spectacle that nearby Disneyland itself would have been proud of.

The Los Angeles Olympics is one of the most dramatic and eventful games ever to play out. The Games were boycotted by 14 Eastern Bloc Countries, including the Soviet Union and East Germany, in response to the American-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.

Still 140 National Olympic Committees took part, which was a record number at the time. Some of the world’s greatest athletes full of personality, ego and in certain case controversy descended into the Coliseum to fight for gold over 16 blistering days under the LA sun.

In 2028 the Olympics will return to Los Angeles for the third time and I hope that a tv drama series with the stories from the 1984 Games will be ready for screening.