Memory of the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo Source: Profimedia
SARAJEVO – The Winter Olympic Games, which were inaugurated in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo on February 8, 1984, were supposed to show the city as a symbol of peace and friendship.
After 40 years since the event, where the Czechoslovak national team also celebrated great success, Sarajevo is still associated in people’s minds with the civil war rather than the Olympics. It engulfed Bosnia and Herzegovina only eight years after the sports holiday, claimed 100,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in more than three years.
Sarajevo won the bid to host the games in fierce competition from the Japanese Sapporo and the Swedish cities of Falun and Gothenburg. Both politics and symbolism played a large role in the International Olympic Committee’s decision-making.
Yugoslavia was seen as a bridge between East and West, and the year of the Olympic Games coincided with the 70th anniversary of the start of the First World War, which was started by the Sarajevo assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand. The fact that the Yugoslav state was more associated with summer and the sea than with winter sports was not an obstacle either.
Until the last moment, they worried about the fate of the Olympic Games
Even Sarajevo itself did not have a great tradition of winter sports, but that changed after the Olympics. Before the games, whose symbol became the wolf Vučko, winter stadiums were built in the city, and in the surrounding mountains, ski areas and a now destroyed bobsleigh track, said to be the most beautiful and safest in the world. Due to the lack of snow, the organizers were worried about the fate of the Olympics until the last moment. But the memorialists mention that the night before the start of the event, a meter-long fire broke out and a stone fell from everyone’s heart.
The Games brought fame to many athletes, but the British dance couple Jayne Torvillová and Christopher Dean can undoubtedly be considered the biggest stars. Their rendition of Ravel’s Bolero literally charmed the judges, who awarded the ride the highest possible marks at the time, twelve sixes.
The Czechoslovaks did not come out empty-handed either, winning six medals – two silver and four bronze. Slovakian figure skater Jozef Sabovčík also enjoyed the medal.
- Author: © List/
- Source: CTK
2024-02-08 04:50:21
#Winter #Olympics #socialist #country #peace #bloody #massacre