With the award of the 1984 Olympic Winter Games to Sarajevo in 1978, the IOC was bringing the Winter festival to the Eastern Bloc for the first time. Sarajevo might have seemed a surprise choice but the other two candidates had problems. Göteburg planned events to be spread so widely that air transport would be necessary, while Sapporo had hosted the Winter Olympics in 1972, only six years before the bid for the 1984 Olympic Winter Games.
After the controversy, problems, and excitement in Lake Placid, Sarajevo's Winter Olympics were much quieter. The only difficulties were weather problems. An initial concern about lack of snow was alleviated when a blizzard hit shortly after the opening ceremonies, forcing the men's downhill to be postponed three times and delayed an entire week. All Alpine skiing events(/games/sportgames?editionid=42&sport_id=ASK) were postponed for the first four days.

In skiing, the IOC was making a last stand to keep the Olympics amateur. The IOC upheld the ski federation (FIS) when it banned ski champions Ingemar Stenmark (SWE) and Hanni Wenzel (LIE) shortly before the Olympics. The FIS charged them with having accepted appearance money. There were also problems concerning the eligibility of ice hockey players who had competed in the National Hockey League (NHL). Shortly before the ice hockey tournament, the IOC reached a compromise in which five skaters who had played in the NHL withdrew from the Olympics, while players who had signed contracts but played only in the minor leagues were allowed to play.
In nordic skiing, Marja-Liisa Hämäläinen (FIN) won three cross-country skiing gold medals. But nordic skiing rarely captures the press notices of figure skating, alpine skiing or ice hockey, and Hämäläinen's feat was noted with little fanfare outside Finland.
In ice hockey, the Soviets restored the status quo when they easily won the gold medal. The Canadians, having returned to Olympic ice hockey in 1980, were thought to have a chance as some professionals could now be used. But the U.S.S.R. played seven games, won seven games, took the gold medal, and went home happy.
Figure skating produced the closest thing these Olympics had to media heroes. In ice dancing, the British couple, Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, was heavily favored based on past performances. Their final program was quite controversial, however, as it probably violated ice dancing protocol by being based on a single piece of music, Ravel's "Bolero". Their performance to "Bolero" was mesmerizing, building to an almost orgiastic finish that brought the crowd to a frenzy. The judges awarded the Brits the highest scores ever seen in figure skating, with 12 6.0s out of 18 marks.
In singles figure skating, Scott Hamilton (USA) and Katarina Witt (GDR) won gold medals. Hamilton was expected to win as he had been nonpareil since the 1980 Olympics. Witt was not as well known and was not favored, but her stunning beauty made her a crowd favorite.
Sarajevo held a beautiful Winter Olympics. But the beauty would fade. When Yugoslavia split into the various republics in the early 1990s, civil war ensued in Yugoslavia over ethnic cleansing, much of it fought in Bosnia & Herzegovina. Many of the Olympic sights were destroyed by the war, and the peace and tranquility of the 1984 Winter Olympics seemed but a dream. Taken from http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/winter/1984/

After 52 years, the Summer Olympic returned to the United States in 1984, and once again, the Games came to Los Angeles. Looking for respite after the previous three difficult Olympics, the IOC would not find it in Los Angeles.
In May 1984, the Soviet Union announced that it would not attend the Olympics in Los Angeles, citing concerns over the safety of its athletes because of the "anti-Soviet and anti-Communist activities" in the Los Angeles area. Most people considered the boycott one of retribution for the United States' refusal to compete in Moscow. Most of the Eastern European countries joined in the Soviet-bloc boycott, notably East Germany (GDR), and they were joined by Cuba. Although only 14 invited countries did not compete in Los Angeles, the absence of the U.S.S.R., Cuba, and the GDR made many of the events mere shadows of what was anticipated.

Still, more countries and athletes competed at Los Angeles than in any previous Olympics. However, what the 1984 boycott lacked in numbers relative to the 1980 boycott, it made up for it in its impact on the competition. Boxing, weightlifting, wrestling, gymnastics, and track & field would have been dominated by the boycotting nations. The nations which did not compete were: Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Ethiopia, German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Laos, Mongolia, North Korea, Poland, South Yemen, Vietnam, and the U.S.S.R. Bravely, Romania defied the boycott and competed at the Olympics, receiving an ovation at the opening ceremonies second only to that of the host country. Yugoslavia, not Soviet dominated, was the only other country from Eastern Europe to compete.
After all that, the Olympics were very well run, although the Europeans had numerous complaints, mostly about customary American methods of doing business. American television concentrated on U.S. athletes, which infuriated the Europeans. Notably, decathlon champion Daley Thompson (GBR) appeared at the closing ceremonies wearing a T-shirt saying "Thanks, America, for a great Games", on the front, and "But what about the television coverage?" on the back.
For the first time ever, the Games were managed in an entrepreneurial fashion. Organizing committee President Peter Ueberroth insisted that the Olympics be designed to break even or even provide a profit. Again, the Europeans, used to the simon-pure idealistic image of the Olympics for the Olympics' sake, rebelled against this philosophy. But Ueberroth was determined not to have another white elephant like Montréal and he succeeded admirably in that regard. So admirably, in fact, that when the final tally came in, the organizing committee had made several hundred million dollars. It should be pointed out, however, that Ueberroth's marketing methods, though decried by the Europeans, have since been copied by all organizing committees and even the IOC itself.
Much of the profit was given to the U.S. Olympic Committee, some to support youth sports programs in the U.S., and some was given back to the participating nations to help pay their expenses for participating. Still, it left a sour taste in many people's mouths, especially since the Organizing Committee was maintaining until the very end that it would not make a profit, but only come out approximately even.
As to the sports themselves, the competition was good, though diluted in many ways because of the boycott. Carl Lewis emerged as the American men's star, equalling Jesse Owens' 1936 feat of winning four gold medals in track & field. But Lewis did not have Owens' appeal to the American public and his image, almost obsequiously nurtured by his manager, failed to live up to his deeds on the track.
Failing Lewis, the American public reached instead to Mary Lou Retton, an American gymnast who won the all-around individual gold for the first time in history. To win she needed a perfect ten on her last event, the horse vault. Given two vaults, she achieved the 10, not once, but twice.
After the debacles of Munich and Montréal, Los Angeles had been the only bidder for the Games of 1984. But Los Angeles, despite its problems, revitalized the Olympic Movement to some degree. Having shown that the Olympics did not need to be a "loss-leader" and could, in fact, produce an operating profit, many cities now were interested in hosting the Olympics. Shortly after the 1984 Olympics, six cities would bid to host the 1992 Games. And the IOC reached out to a strange bedfellow, Seoul, Korea, to provide a bit of solace to its troubled Movement in 1988. Taken from http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/summer/1984/