Reagan opens the Los Angeles Games as 14 Eastern Bloc nations stay home

Four years after the United States boycotted the Moscow Olympics, the Soviet Union boycotted Los Angeles in response. On July 28, 1984, President Ronald Reagan opened the Games of the XXIII Olympiad in Los Angeles as fourteen Eastern Bloc countries, including East Germany, stayed away in protest. Romania defied Moscow and sent its team anyway. Still, 140 nations showed up, a record at the time. Rafer Johnson lit the cauldron after a torch relay that had crossed 33 states since leaving New York…