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- The 2026 Winter Olympics are about to kick off in Milan.
- Sometimes cities successfully repurpose parts of their Olympic set-ups, like in Montreal.
- But oftentimes, these giant investments are torn down or abandoned, as these photos show.
It can be an expensive — and potentially damaging — undertaking for a country to host the Olympics.
This year’s games in Italy are costing just $1.6 billion, Reuters reported. While that’s nothing to scoff at, it’s a mere fraction of the $55 billion Brazil reportedly spent in 2016.
A significant part of the expense is building new facilities for the events and housing for the athletes. Then, after the closing ceremonies, some stadiums are used again — there’s always going to be a market for a soccer stadium — but other venues like Olympic pools, kayaking facilities, ski jumping, and beach volleyball can fall into disrepair almost immediately.
These Olympic venues from Berlin, Sarajevo, Athens, Sochi, Rio de Janeiro, and Beijing have all seen better days — take a look at what they looked like once the crowds left.
James Grebey contributed to an earlier version of this story.
In Berlin, there are still remnants of the 1936 Games, 90 years later.
This building, pictured in May 2021, was once a swimming hall.
Some of Berlin’s Olympic Village still stands, almost untouched.
Reports since 2015 have indicated that German developers are renovating some structures — and building new ones — to create residences at a section of the Olympic Village in Berlin.
The 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, took place less than a decade before the Bosnian War.
Yugoslavia has now been split into Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Slovenia. Sarajevo is in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The city was under siege, and though it’s largely recovered in the years since, many Olympic sites, like this ski jump, have been left to the elements.
In 2024, when Sarajevo marked the 40th anniversary of the Olympics, some of the slopes remained abandoned.
The bobsled course on Mount Trebević is overgrown and covered in graffiti.
However, the city repaired the cable car, which ferried people to the bobsled events on the mountain, and it reopened in 2018, making it a tourist destination once again.
“In the past few years … the mountain has slowly returned to something like its former self,” The Guardian wrote in 2018. “Hotels, restaurants and cafes have been rebuilt, mines swept away and hikers from all over Sarajevo visit en masse.”
Occasionally, it gets used by brave BMX bikers.
Despite some rejuvenation to parts of the area, the bobsled track remains abandoned and covered in graffiti, and moss grows along its walls.
Athens went billions over its planned budget of $1.6 billion for the 2004 Summer Olympics.
The Greek government had to pay for everything, and, sadly, there just wasn’t any use for most of the buildings, stadiums, and courses after the Olympics, Time reported eight years later.
A decade later, photos showed a crumbling pool full of fetid water.
The pool, pictured in 2014, was crumbling.
These huge, abandoned investments must have been especially painful in light of Greece’s financial crisis.
The financial crisis led to bailouts for the country starting in 2010.
Understandably, its money wasn’t going toward renovating abandoned buildings.
“Welcome home” says the sign, a reference to Greece being the original site of the Olympics.
A decade after the crowds left, nobody was playing baseball or softball at the stadium in Athens.
A worker told the London Evening Standard in 2012 that it’s not technically abandoned, it’s just that nobody ever plays softball.
The baseball stadium was used to house refugees in 2016, CNN reported.
It was finally demolished in 2023.
The beach volleyball court in Athens was consumed by weeds.
The stadium was completely empty — apart from the weeds — when it was photographed in 2014.
The Beijing National Stadium, built for the 2008 Summer Olympics, has struggled to find events to fill its 80,000 seats.
It was used again at the 2022 Olympics and became the first stadium to host the Summer, Winter, and Paralympic opening ceremonies.
The kayaking facility hasn’t seen much use either.
The rowing facility is largely ignored.
As the 2022 Olympics were in the winter, much of the specially built summer equipment wasn’t used.
Many venues, like the beach volleyball court, are simply closed to the public.
Climbing on the fence is not advised.
Half of the Beijing National Aquatics Center was eventually remodeled and turned into a water park.
Here’s an abandoned Beibei, one of the Olympic mascots of Beijing, pictured in 2018.
This is what Beibei should look like.
The 2014 Winter Olympics were held in Russia’s largest resort city, Sochi.
It was the most expensive Olympics in history, costing the Russian government $55 billion, according to AP.
The Fisht Stadium was originally a dome, but it was converted to an open-air stadium for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
Sochi was just one of many cities to host games during the World Cup.
But many other structures have seen limited use, like these ski jumps in Estosadok.
By 2018, when this photo was taken, the facilities had hardly been used.
The Summer Olympics were held in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. In the years that followed, venues like this aquatic stadium became ghost towns.
Hopefully, this year’s facilities in Milan and Cortina will have better luck.
Maracanã Stadium was renovated for the Olympics, but it has largely been abandoned.
The Copa América finals in 2021 were held there, though almost no spectators were allowed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Vandals stole seats and TVs from the stadium.
Some of it has since been restored.
Parts of the Olympic complex became a health hazard, such as the Rio Media Center.
It’s seen here in November 2016.
The site remained untouched for months.
Six months after the closing ceremony, trash from the Games was still visible.
Read the full article here
