1984 Summer Olympics boycott

The boycott of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles followed four years after the American-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. The boycott involved nineteen countries: fifteen from the Eastern Bloc led by the Soviet Union, which initiated the boycott on May 8, 1984; and four non‑aligned countries which boycotted on their own initiatives. The boycotting countries organized alternative sporting events which functioned as a replacement for the Olympics in everything but name, called the Friendship Games, which were held in various Eastern Bloc countries from July to September 1984. Although the boycott affected Olympic events that were normally dominated by the absent countries, 140 nations still took part in the Los Angeles Games, which was a record at the time.

Since the announcement by U.S. President Carter of the boycott of the Olympic Games in Moscow in 1980, there was fear from United States officials that a reciprocal boycott could occur during the 1984 Games, scheduled for Los Angeles. The Soviets for their part gave sparsely few indications that this would happen, and indeed, from formalized talks which occurred over the course of three years, indicators seemed to point towards Soviet participation. Only in the last year before the Games began did a sense of non-participation come about.

During that final year, the loss of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 and the subsequent vitriol directed at the Soviets by various activist groups which formed in the aftermath of the flight's destruction seriously hampered relations between the two committees tasked with coordinating Soviet attendance, the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee (LAOOC) and the Soviet National Olympic Committee (Soviet NOC). Their faltering relations did not improve with the accession of Konstantin Chernenko to the post of General Secretary of the Soviet Union in February 1984. Chernenko was a close acolyte of Leonid Brezhnev and therefore predisposed to avoiding Los Angeles due to the 1980 boycott. American reticence in dealing with anti-Soviet activists coupled with American mishandling of the Soviets' Olympic attaché, incentivized the Soviets enough in their view to justify boycotting the Games. Most of the Soviet‑allied nations of the Eastern Bloc joined the boycott in solidarity, despite the decision being hugely unpopular amongst Bloc countries with significant prior Olympic medal winnings.