February 14, 1984: Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean
win the Gold Medal in ice dancing at the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.
Their routine, to Maurice Ravel's Boléro, seems tame now, but in 1984, it was
a bit much for a 14-year-old kid, who was used to figure skating being the
innocent kind done by Peggy Fleming, Dorothy Hamill, and, even in these Games,
by Scott Hamilton.
Ravel had composed Boléro in 1928, commissioned by the Russian ballerina Ida Rubinstein. Boléro was a form of Spanish dance, popular in the New World in Cuba, and he based his composition on the dance. So there was a connection of the piece to dance, if not to ice.
The piece was used in the 1979 film comedy 10, bringing it to a modern audience. Bolero had already been the title of 2 films before Bo Derek, who had starred in 10, starred in a film with the title, directed by her husband John Derek, released 6 months after the Winter Olympics. It didn't help: Unlike Torvill and Dean and 10, the Dereks' Bolero was a flop.
As usual, the Olympic Games began with an Opening Ceremony, which had a Parade of Nations, featuring all the athletes and officials from each participating country. As usual, the Parade began with the original Olympic nation, Greece; ended with the host nation; and, in between, the countries paraded in alphabetical order -- according to the host country's language. And so, "United States of America" became "Sjedinjene Američke Države" -- or, as was printed on the sign, "SAD." It was appropriate, as we didn't do too well in those Games.
For America, the highlight of the 1984 Winter Olympics was twin skiers Phil and Steve Mahre taking Gold and Silver Medals in the slalom, and Scott Hamilton winning in men's figure skating. For the Soviet Union, it was redemption in hockey following their shock defeat to the U.S. in 1980. (But who remembers when the Soviets won? People only remember when they lost, like in 1980, and in the 1972 Summit Series against Canada) For pretty much everybody else, the highlight was Torvill and Dean inventing ice porn.
By the time of the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway -- the 1st time the Winter Games were held in the even-numbered off-years between Summer Games -- Yugoslavia had broken up into several smaller nations, including Bosnia, whose capital was Sarajevo. And Serbia was committing countless war crimes in Bosnia.
Torvill and Dean made a comeback in Lillehammer, winning the Bronze Medal. The Games concluded with a night of skating in tribute to the victims of Sarajevo, and Torvill and Dean performed Boléro again. By this point, I was used to seeing performances hot enough to melt the ice, so it wasn't as shocking. But they were still on top of their game, if not on top of each other.
Both of them were from Nottinghamshire. Torvill is now 66 and married.
Dean is 65, and twice divorced, both times from skaters: France’s Isabelle Duchesnay,
and America’s Jill Trenary. Each has 2 children.
The main stadium for the Games, Koševo Stadium, now named Asim Ferhatović Stadium after a player for soccer team FK (football club) Sarajevo, was built in 1947, seats 37,500 (down from a standing peak of 80,000), and is still used as the home of FK Sarajevo, FK Zeljeznicar and the Bosnian national team. While it did sustain mortar damage during the Bosnian Civil War, it was not, unlike some notable stadiums (including the national stadiums in Austria in the 1940s and Chile in the 1970s) used as a prison camp.
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February 14, 1984 was a Tuesday. Baseball and football were out of season. There were 8 games in the NBA:
* The New York Knicks beat the Kansas City Kings, 106-100 at the Kemper Arena (now the Hy-Vee Arena) in Kansas City. Bernard King, as he so often did that season, led all scorers on the night, with 40 points.
* The Washington Bullets beat the Denver Nuggets, 108-96 at the McNichols Arena in Denver.
* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Cleveland Cavaliers, 103-93 at The Coliseum in the Cleveland suburb of Richfield, Ohio.
* The Chicago Bulls beat the San Diego Clippers, 112-99 at the Chicago Stadium.
* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Phoenix Suns, 92-83 at the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.
* The Detroit Pistons beat the Houston Rockets, 126-119 at The Summit in Houston. (It's now the Central Campus of Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church.) Isiah Thomas scored 39 points.
* The Utah Jazz beat the Atlanta Hawks, 100-98 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah.
* And the Golden State Warriors beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 105-102 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.
There were 2 games in the NHL. One was a rare win by the 1983-84 New Jersey Devils, 6-4 over the Los Angeles Kings at the Brendan Byrne Arena in the Meadowlands. The other was the Montreal Canadiens, beating the Hartford Whalers, 5-3 at the Hartford Civic Center (now the PeoplesBank Arena).
