The United States was the host nation of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California. It was the nineteenth time that Team USA participated, having boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics. 522 competitors, 339 men and 183 women, took part in 217 events in 25 sports.
These Olympic Games were unique for the United States in that the host state was California, the home state of the country's president, Ronald Reagan, who himself opened the Games, becoming the first American president to open a Summer Olympics, and also any Olympic games in the United States. Reagan was governor of the state from 1967 to 1975.
However, it was not until the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City that an American president opened a Winter Olympics in the United States.
Team USA won 83 Gold medals at the 1984 Summer Olympics, which is as of 2012, the record for most first place finishes in a Summer Olympics by a host nation.
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states and/or summer:
“I thought it altogether proper that I should take a brief furlough from official duties at Washington to mingle with you here to-day as a comrade, because every President of the United States must realize that the strength of the Government, its defence in war, the army that is to muster under its banner when our Nation is assailed, is to be found here in the masses of our people.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“We now in the United States have more security guards for the rich than we have police services for the poor districts. If you’re looking for personal security, far better to move to the suburbs than to pay taxes in New York.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“My opinion is that the Northern states will manage somehow to muddle through.”
—John Bright (1811–1889)
“Behind the glass, under the cellophane,
Remains your final summer sweet
And meaningless, and not to come again.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)