A pool of water where multi gold medal-winner Michael Phelps once trained sits in Athens, Greece, murky and neglected. Beijing’s 2008 Olympic facilities, including the iconic Bird’s Nest, are abandoned without any plans for further use by the Chinese government. Less than two years after the Rio Olympics, many of the facilities gather dust.
Many of the arenas and training areas from previous Olympic Games exist without purpose or use after the Olympics left — leaving a massive architectural footprint with it.
Andrei Markovits, University of Michigan comparative politics and German studies professor, said he thinks countries with a stable democracy are more likely to repurpose structures built for the Olympic Games.
“Particularly over long periods of time, democracies have a much better way of amortizing these huge expenses in a good way because there’s a free press and investigative journalists,†Markovits said. “This is not the case in dictatorships. They build it only for the glitter.â€
Markovits said he thinks dictatorships or dictatorship-like states are less likely to care what happens to historic buildings from the Olympics after they are gone.
“I always find these measures of whether it paid or whether you could use the facilities after, certainly in a dictatorship, like China and Russia, or a semi-dictatorship, like Brazil, is completely irrelevant,†Markovits said. “Not in Britain, which is why it is being used effectively.â€
Markovits said the reason countries host the Olympics is to raise national pride.
“Putin didn’t worry about the billions and billions of rubles,†Markovits said. “What matters here was the tremendous pride and nationalism. The Olympics are a nationalist orgy.â€
Markovits said South Korea is in some ways developed and in others undeveloped, making it unclear what will happen to the structures after the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
Cody Havard, University of Memphis sports management professor, said he sees more recent venues going the same way as the older ones, such as the Olympic Games in Athens.
“Regarding Rio, we have now seen the already deteriorating venues less than two years following the Games,†Havard said. “The Sochi Games were supposed to be used to develop a world-class ski resort. During the games, many viewers heard stories about hotels that were not completed and dogs that were left by families forced to leave Sochi.â€
Havard said China did better with the Beijing Olympics, but there are still many facilities not in use.
“Many (of the facilities in Beijing) sit empty and represent what many would think of as Olympic waste in addition to public safety risks,†Havard said.
Far from the only way the facilities were mishandled, the athletes’ housing at the 2016 Rio Olympics were called unfit for occupancy. Havard said athletes were even held up and accosted while traveling between the village and practice facilities.
“To my understanding, as with many venues and issues at the Rio games, the housing was considered unfit for occupancy because the complex was not completed,†Havard said. “For example, stories of rooms not having furniture, such as mattresses, circulated before the games. I also think the village was deemed unfit due to safety concerns.â€
Roxane Coche, U of M journalism professor, attended the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics and said she thinks building too much infrastructure could cause some of the housing and arena upkeep issues with the recent Olympic Games.
The Los Angeles committee in charge of the 1984 Olympic Games modified old structures instead of building new ones. They also repurposed athlete housing into college dorms for nearby schools after the games ended. London also kept up well with their structures after the Olympics.
“The city (London) didn’t have to do too much for public transportation at the Olympics because most of it was already there or had already been approved,†Coche said. “For instance, the East London Line of the Overground was extended, but that extension had been approved years before London was chosen as the host city. When you organize a mega-event like the Olympics, having less on your plate, as London did, makes things much easier.â€
Beijing National Stadium, also known as The Bird's Nest, was the main site of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games.
Maracana Stadium was a main attraction during the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The Olympic Park in Sochi, Russia, was the site of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.
The site of the 2004 Summer Olympic games in Athens, Greece.
A stadium from the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.
