Link: “Olympic cities can become multi-billion-dollar graveyards for white elephants after the Games”
With the Olympics now over, it seems a good time to reflect on what’s happened to the enormously expensive venues that recent host cities have built. Not surprising, really, that hardly anywhere is interested in hosting the Olympic Games any more. There can be some benefits (like the Brisbane 2032 bid apparently was motivated in part by local mayors wanting better train services, and this article says Athens got greatly improved transport infrastructure too) but how overshadowed is it by the cost of unnecessarily large venues and flattering IOC officials’ egos…
The article does also suggest that greater use could be made of pop-up venues (like Pyeongchang’s $101 million disposable stadium – which despite that price tag was less than 15% what Sydney’s Olympic Stadium cost) or else that that the Games could get a permanent home, or maybe that different Olympic sports could have different permanent home cities, although at that point you’d have to wonder what would distinguish the Olympics from existing world championships.
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Jessica Smith on .