What Was the Best Summer Olympics of the Last Three Decades?

last one I watched ?

Mostly because of the opening ceremony. Secondly I cannot remember 04, 2000, or 96 considering I was only a mindless child lol.

The fondest memories of watching the Olympics I have come from the 96' Olympics. The 92' Olymics was cool because of the greatest basketball team ever assembled, the original dream team, kicking butt. Los Angeles and Moscow are Olympics that are hard to rate because of the politics of the Olympics in those. The 1988 Olympics were largely forgettable. The Sydney Olympics had the best opening ceremonies (followed not too far behind by Atlanta) and Sydney and is a beautiful city. Athens was cool but it's not as memorable as some of the other Olympics with the exception of returning back to the home of the original Olympics. Beijing is memorable being that it was the last Olympics held at the moment. So I'd say the order from best to worst Olympics of the last THIRTY TWO (32) YEARS were: 96, 92, 00', 08', 84' 04', 88', 80'. This questions author needs to brush up on simple mathmatics cuz 1980 is 32 years ago instead of 30 years ago so the question should read ''What was the best Olympics of the last 32 years''.

Any Olympics where USA toasts countries like the USSR and Iran!

Los Angeles 1984 had many great moments from memorable athletes.

The 1972 Games in Munich were so good that I never watch any of the Olympics anymore after that. Teofiilio Stevenson, Olga Korbut, Mark Spitz, Nellie Kim, Frank Shorter, Valery Bordzov and he later married Torescheva, Raymond Leonard, Dave Wottle . .. And the list just keeps going on-and-on. Of course, the shoot-out at the Airport; and all of that; should be forgotten; that was just some stupid-ass, selfish Islamic Muslims trying to be somebody in a World that they don't belong to live at all; but I am not talking about that. No politics. Just Jim McKay, and Howard Cosell, and ABC Sports, produced by Roone Arledge. Now days I might watch the fastest man alive (100 Meter Dash) but as far as any of the other events go; I don't really care about it.

Unfortunately I've only been around for 21 of the last 30 years so I didn't get to see most of these games and I only can remember back to the Sydney games anyway! Beijing was definitely my favorite, I was glued to the TV watching Kerri Walk and Misty May-Treanor anytime they had a match! Watching them win the gold was a memory I'll always have!!!

Plus, the opening and closing ceremony were very spectacular. Of course, China is able to spend as much money as needed because they don't really care about overspending on that when they can just take money from other places for it.

Wasn't around but i've seen some footage and i loved it!!!

Lot of great things but Muhammad Ali lighting the torch to open the games was awesome

I had that on Atari.

Woo hoo!

Ah the memories...

The Aussies know how to throw a party.

Home of the original 12 Olympians

lpl x

This the one I remember pretty good. An I did watch some of the dream team of 92 whipping butt back then

The only Summer Olympics I watched in my life. That won't be the case though in a few weeks...

It is hard to pick just one, they all have something special to them going back to when I first started watching them with Jim McKay in the 60's. They have had tumultuous incidents take place and wonderful joyful winnings take place like the US Russian Hockey Gold medal game.

The Russian Boycott was not our problem. We got to see the future of the best basketball player on the planet.
Next was Barcelona, then Beijing.

You don't seem to know that Jimmy Carter had the USA boycott the 1980 Olympics. The Americans were not allowed to compete. Then Russia retaliated by boycotting the 1984 Olympics. It's moronic to even consider either of those 2. The writer of this question did not properly research it at all.

One of Carter's dumbest mistakes and also one of the final straws in forming my dislike of the Olympic movement. The arrogance of Carter to meddle in the lives of those who largely succeeded on their own, without govt help or involvement.

But it was an Olympics and deserves inclusion. Most of the world competed.

Agreed 100% Olympics is supposed to be non-political, 1936 notwithstanding.

if it happened before 1985 i didnt happen

i was supporting, daily thomson, fatima whitbread and all the u.k team

It was one of (if not the most) successful modern Games in that there were no *major* violent or financial incidents, as was the case in many of the Games before it.