Weightlifting at the 1984 Summer Olympics

The 1984 Olympic weightlifting competition was decimated by the Eastern Bloc boycott, as almost of the world’s top lifters were from Eastern Europe, especially the Soviet Union and Bulgaria. Concurrent with the 1984 Olympics, the boycotting nations held their own Friendship Games, as they called them, and most of the marks at those Games were far superior to those in the Los Angeles Olympics.

In the absence of the Eastern Bloc, 11 nations won medals, with Romania winning eight, but China won six and won the most events, with four. The 11 medal-winning nations tied an Olympic best for weightlifting, first set in 1972, although it would be bettered in 1996 at Atlanta, with 14, and then shattered in 2000 with 23, although women débuted in Olympic weightlifting in Sydney.

The weightlifting competition had the same program as in 1980, with 10 weight classes. It was held at the Albert Gersten Pavilion on the campus of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. The Gersten Pavilion was built in 1981 and sat about 4,000 people for the 1984 weightlifting events. It has been the home court for the Loyola Marymount basketball team and an occasional practice site for the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers.