As we prepare to celebrate the USA Volleyball Team at Disneyland park on Tuesday, we look back at some other great Olympians who have visited us over the years.
As you might imagine, the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics were a pretty big deal for us here at the Disneyland Resort. In addition to a big fundraiser event for the U.S. Olympic Team that May (which included pyrotechnic Olympic rings suspended from a helicopter!), we hosted thousands of athletes, officials and dignitaries from more than 140 nations during the games themselves.
In 1988, we hosted a send-off for Team USA as they prepared to leave for the Olympics in Seoul, Korea. Following the games, we saluted our returning Olympians with an event featuring then-Vice President George H.W. Bush.
This video, produced before the most recent games, features archival photography from these events as well as individual visits from some of our Olympic heroes over the last four decades.
Read more about the history of Disneyland park in these posts:
Comments
where’s hercules?
I was a cast member in Disneyland working the Kodak camera counter on Main Street during the 1984 Olympics. It was the most incredible two weeks! One day a Korean gentleman came in; he didn’t speak English. I don’t speak Korean. A Taiwanese journalist came in about the same time. He didn’t speak Korean, but did know English. Both men spoke a little Japanese. I’d explain, in English, how I was going to save the film … the Taiwanese gentleman translated into Japanese and the Korean gentleman okayed the plan. When I came out of our darkroom, we followed the same procedure regarding who to take the film to when the Korean gentleman arrived home. When I came out of the darkroom a second time, after saving the journalist’s film, he presented me with a most wonderful gift … a drawing of what I’d look like if I were Taiwanese on one side of the paper and a comic drawing of himself on the other … name signed in the Chinese alphabet and modern. I still cherish those drawings!
Very moving – enjoyed this post very much!!
What time will the volley ball team be at Disneyland?
I didn’t even know they did that swimming thingon Main Street U.S.A. That must have been so cool to watch!
Oh, and go U.S. volleyball!
The swimming pool on Main Street USA was amazing. And seeing Muhammad Ali as an Olympian and then later was heartwarming.
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