The Best of Winter - 4th Place: Sarajevo 1984

This is an emotional pick for different reasons. As everybody knows, the city of Sarajevo was the only Olympic host city ever to be destroyed by civil war. It happened only a decade after the flame was extinguished.

But these Games were unique for many different reasons. They were the last Games before the expansion era, when the festival was stretched over three weekends. They were the only Games ever held in a non-alligned state. And it was the only time between Lake Placid 1980 and Calgary 1988 when all sport super powers were present.

Many remember these Games for the fabulous "Bolero" by Jayne Torvill an Christopher Dean. Memorable to me is mainly the downhill gold medalist Bill Johnson. The California native was a one hit wonder of alpine skiing, dominating the downhill scene only for the winter of 1983/1984. Johnson broke up cars as a youngster, he was sent into a ski facility by a judge. After his triumph at Mount Bjelasnica,...

...Johnson vanished from the scene as fast as he had appeared. His life went downhill from there on and ended tragically just a few weeks ago, after suffering from multiple diseases.

It is a sad footnote to the otherwise harmonious 1984 Winter Games. Tragedy afterwards mainly struck the multicultural city of Sarajevo. The photo below shows the roof of Zetra Ice Palace (today Juan Antonio Samaranch hall) hit by a grenade during the civil war in 1992.