Athletics at the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games:

The three top marathon runners between 1980 and 1984 were Australia’s Rob de Castella, America’s Alberto Salazar, and Japan’s Toshihiko Seko. Salazar had won the New York Marathon in 1980, 1981, and 1982, and won Boston in 1981. His 1981 New York win in 2-08:12.7 appeared to be a world record but the course, on re-measurement, was found to be slightly short of the full marathon distance. That same year de Castella won Fukuoka in 2-08:18 and that time did become a world record for the marathon. He had also won the marathon at the first Athletics World Championships in 1983. Seko would have been a favorite in 1980, but Japan joined the American boycott of Moskva, and he could not run. In 1981 Seko won the Boston Marathon, and he had won four Fukuoka titles between 1979 and 1983.

The Olympic marathon course started at Santa Monica City College and ran thru Los Angeles, finishing at the LA Coliseum on the track. The race started at 5 PM and was run in warm sun throughout. Salazar, de Castella, and Seko all came to the starting line, but none of them figured among the leaders during the race. It was eventually won by the Portuguese Carlos Lopes. Lopes had been a top 10K track runner and in 1983 had won the International Cross-Country Championship at the Meadowlands in New Jersey. He had only once before finished a marathon, that in Rotterdam in 1983. In 1985, he would return to Rotterdam and set a world marathon best of 2-07:12. The other medalists were from the British Isles, with Ireland’s John Treacy winning the silver medal and Britain’s Charles Spedding the bronze. De Castella finished fifth, Seko 14th, and Salazar 15th.