The Olympics started recently in Rio de Janeiro, and many buildings were built to host it. sports facilities. Let's see what some of the Olympic venues look like today, where the Olympic Games were held at different times.
Olympic softball stadium in Athens, June 11, 2012. After the games in 2004, the village was used as housing for workers. Eight years later, many of the sites remain abandoned or rarely used.
Olympic canoe/rowing slalom center at the Elliniko Olympic complex in Athens, Greece, July 31, 2014.
Seats for journalists in the main pool during the summer Olympic Games ah 2004 in Athens, August 20, 2014.
Remains of a fountain in the former Olympic Village on the northern outskirts of Athens, August 2, 2012.
Baseball stadium at the Elliniko Olympic Complex in Athens, Greece, July 31, 2014.
An abandoned building for the 2008 Beijing beach volleyball competition, April 2, 2012.
Two of the five mascots of the 2008 Beijing Olympics lie among the trees behind an abandoned, unfinished shopping mall in Beijing.
Abandoned swimming pool for the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
Abandoned houses for athletes in the former Olympic Village, built for the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
An abandoned bobsled track remains from the Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olympics on Mount Trebevic, near Sarajevo, September 19, 2013.
An abandoned ski jump left over from the Sarajevo 1984 Olympic Games on Mount Igman, near Sarajevo, September 19, 2013. Most of Sarajevo's Olympic venues fell into ruins due to the conflict that tore apart the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
With less than a week left until the start of the Rio Olympics, event organizers are rushing to put the finishing touches on it.
The Olympic Village has been branded uninhabitable, although athletes still have to move in there, and the pier for competitions is sailing was destroyed by three-meter waves. In addition, the cost of hosting the Games is rising rapidly.
With each new Olympics, more and more cities around the world are asking the question: is the game worth the candle?
A springboard near Sarajevo, where competitions were held as part of the 1984 Winter Olympics.
Most cities simply do not have the infrastructure necessary to host thousands of athletes, coaches, spectators and media representatives on their territory for two weeks. The amount needed to build cutting-edge Olympic venues is rising, and research suggests pouring billions of dollars into a two-week event is not the best investment.
The pool where swimming competitions were held during the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.
The worst scenario for the host cities is if after the Games the Olympic venues become the fifth wheel in the cart, on which an insane amount of money was also spent. This has happened more than once with different cities peace. Of course, the reasons for such developments in each case are different. The capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo, for example, was seriously damaged by the civil war, which caused the destruction of many of the Olympic sites that remained after Winter Olympics 1984.
Berlin olympic village these days, perhaps, it makes a depressing impression.
Time does not spare anything, including panels from the times of socialism.
The Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta (Georgia, USA) hosted the 1996 Summer Olympics. In 1997, it was decided to demolish it.
The Olympic cauldron was moved from the Olympic Stadium in Atlanta when it was renovated into the home baseball stadium of the Atlanta Braves. Now it proudly rises above the highway.
Chinese tourists look through the fence at the National Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest, where the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics were held.
A sign on an abandoned field in central Beijing that once housed a baseball stadium.
The beach volleyball venue for the 2008 Summer Olympics does not appear to be in the best condition.
A lone dog on an abandoned field that was once a baseball stadium.
Homemade brooms lie where the green area once was during the 2008 Summer Olympics.
The parking lot next to the bike track is now used as a testing ground for driving tests.
An abandoned concrete pedestal where in 1984 the winners of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Sarajevo were awarded.
An abandoned railway station near the Olympic Stadium in Munich, built for the 1972 Summer Olympics.
An abandoned swimming pool built for the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki.
Abandoned Olympic hotel, Moscow.
The Olympic Games are not only the most significant sports competition in the world, but also construction ahead of the curve. In cities that are lucky enough to host the competition, ultra-modern facilities are being built from scratch. sports arenas, hotels and entire neighborhoods with developed infrastructure, new routes are being laid. Sometimes all this can be successfully used even after the end of the Olympics, but it happens that after a few years, objects into which an incredible amount of effort and money were invested turn out to be unnecessary and abandoned. Not a trace remains of the former luxury and pomp.
Sarajevo
The infrastructure of the 1984 Winter Olympics in Yugoslavia suffered a sad fate: the Olympic village was almost completely destroyed during the civil war. The site is now home to a large cemetery, which is bordered by new low-cost housing developments that appeared here in the late 1990s.
This is what an abandoned bobsleigh complex looks like. The area is abundantly overgrown with young spruce trees, and local teenagers happily use the route as a canvas for graffiti. Tourists who come here almost always take pictures inside the cracked stone trench.
Berlin
This abandoned swimming pool in Berlin was built by the government of the Third Reich specifically for the 1936 Olympic Games. Subsequently, the Wehrmacht barracks were located here, then - already Soviet troops. Since the early 1990s, the Olympic Park has been empty, attracting only lovers of picturesque ruins.
And this is what the former Olympic village looks like, where athletes lived in 1936.
Athens
The birthplace of the Olympic Games is one of the saddest examples of how money can be brilliantly wasted. Of the 22 facilities built for the 2004 Summer Games, 21 are not in use. It was after the Olympics in Athens that they first began to say that sports infrastructure, the construction of which unimaginable sums were spent, was then of no use to anyone. Moreover, maintaining it in relatively working condition requires enormous funds.
Former swimming pool. Now there is only a little muddy water at the bottom.
The motto of that Olympics was: “Welcome home!” This is what the “house” looked like 10 years after the memorable Games.
Stadium stands for baseball and softball competitions. Both sports were subsequently excluded from the Olympic Games program.
Been there for many years Olympic Park in Athens they are trying to create just a park, but the project is too expensive, and things are not very rosy for Greece, at least financially.
Rio de Janeiro
The multi-storey building of the Olympic Village in Rio also turned out to be empty. And almost immediately after the end of the 2016 Games. There were many plans for this territory, but to this day no investors have been found. True, the territory is protected and has not yet fallen into complete decay, but not much time has passed.
The Olympic tracks have also been abandoned. Most of them have already suffered greatly at the hands of street artists.
Beijing
The Olympics in China took place 10 years ago, and incredible money was also spent on the construction of facilities - at least 40 billion dollars. In the photo you can see the famous Bird's Nest stadium - at present, even it does not participate in sports or cultural events, although usually the main Olympic site can still be used after the end of the Games.
The Beijing Olympic Village is also empty. The bike motocross track and the facilities where kayakers competed fell into disrepair. They say that the water from the canals was not even drained, so now the route has turned into a large elongated polluted pond.
There are hundreds of such “dying” sports facilities around the world. Swimming pool in Helsinki, cracked from time to time, but the Finns never figured out what to do with it. Empty ski lifts and towers in Nagano still stand, but no one has been using them for a long time. Houses in the Olympic Village in Turin are empty and rarely sold. Sometimes the authorities of the former Olympic capitals take a radical approach to solving the problem. So, a year after the Games were held in Atlanta, America, it was decided to demolish the stadium Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. This required a lot of explosives - more than 350 kg, but the arena turned into ruins in a matter of seconds.
However, most of the Olympic sites, which have been neglected for decades, are turning into specific and even creepy art objects that lovers of “stalker” tourism are happy to visit. It is not surprising that in recent years even prosperous cities that could host the Olympic Games, such as Barcelona and Stockholm, have begun to refuse such an opportunity.
From Detroit to Barcelona: fans will never gather in these stadiums again.
The Belgian online publication 7sur7.be has compiled a list of stadiums from around the world that once gathered thousands of spectators in their stands, and at the moment destroyed for economic, political or other reasons. The translation of the publication was published on the newspaper's website Today
Silverdome (Detroit)
The arena in Detroit, which seats 80 thousand spectators, hosted 4 matches of the 1994 World Cup, including the opening match between the USA and Switzerland. The stadium was home arena for the NFL Detroit Lions. The stadium was built in 1977 at a cost of $55 million. In 1987, he received the Mass of Pope John Paul II.
The financial collapse of Detroit also undermined the rails under Pontiac. The arena's last owner, Triple Investment Group, purchased it from the municipality at auction for a starting price of $583,000. But he just abandoned it. In two years one of best arenas America has turned into a ghost stadium.
Leon Bolle Stadium (Le Mans)
This arena was considered home to the Le Mans club until 2012. After the club moved to the new MMAren, several stands at the old stadium were demolished, and those that remained turned into ruins. Reconstructed in 2004, the stadium accommodated 17 thousand spectators.
Estadio Luis Sitjar (Mallorca)
In 1998, Estadio Luis Sitjar witnessed the birth of world football star Xavi. It was in this arena that the future legend of Barcelona and the Spanish national team took his first steps in big football. But since 2007, when Mallorca moved to new arena, "Luis Sitjar" has not seen a single sporting event.
"Donbass Arena" (Donetsk)
In 2012, the stadium in Donetsk hosted Euro 2012 matches. Two years later, when fighting broke out in eastern Ukraine, the stadium came under fire from terrorists. Since the summer of 2014, the stadium has not hosted sporting events. Instead, humanitarian aid is distributed here. The construction of an arena with 52 thousand seats cost Shakhtar President Rinat Akhmetov $400 million.
Sarria Stadium (Barcelona)
Sarria was the home stadium of Espanyol until 1997, when it was demolished. The financial difficulties of the Catalan club forced the management to sell it to a developer, who razed the arena that hosted the 1982 World Cup matches to the ground. Its capacity was 43 thousand people.
When Russia was just beginning to prepare for the Olympic Games in Sochi, those who opposed holding the Olympics in our country cited the following among the arguments: at the end of the competition, all these stadiums, skating rinks and tracks will be unnecessary, and money will thus be wasted to the wind. There was a certain reason in these words - sports facilities Indeed, quite often they fall into desolation immediately after the fire in the Olympic torch goes out. RBC-Sport traced the fate of abandoned Olympic venues around the world and tried to imagine what would happen to the Olympic venues in Sochi.
When Russia was just beginning to prepare for the Olympic Games in Sochi, those who opposed holding the Olympics in our country cited the following among the arguments: at the end of the competition, all these stadiums, skating rinks and tracks will be unnecessary, and money will thus be wasted to the wind. There was a certain reason for these words - sports facilities often fall into disrepair immediately after the fire in the Olympic torch goes out. RBC-Sport traced the fate of abandoned Olympic venues around the world and tried to imagine what would happen in Sochi.
Olympics in Helsinki (Finland). 1952
The 1952 Olympic Games were the first and so far the only Olympics to be held in Finland, and the Finns had to build almost all the sports facilities, as they say, from scratch. However, the Finns were unable to figure out what to do with them next.
Almost all of these stadiums and sports facilities fell into disrepair after the Olympics and are not used in any way today. Only the Olympic stadium and the multi-meter tower, built for the 1952 Olympics, are functioning. At its top is observation deck, which offers a panoramic view of the city.
The stadium and a huge multi-meter tower were built to summer olympics 1952. Now at the top of the white tower there is an observation deck where you can take the elevator and see the surroundings of the Finnish capital. Photo by Globallookpress
Swimming competition in 1952. Photo AR
Abandoned swimming pool in Helsinki
Olympics in Sarajevo (Yugoslavia). 1984
The XIV Winter Olympic Games in Sarajevo set a record - took part in them 1272 athletes (274 women and 998 men) from 49 countries, and this Olympics became the largest at that time. The Yugoslavs, like the Finns, also built almost all the arenas specifically for the Games and also did not figure out what to do with them next. Almost all of these facilities were abandoned after the Olympics.
This is what the track looked like in 1984... Photo AP
The bobsleigh track in Sarajevo now looks like this. Photo by Globallookpress
The ski jump is also abandoned. Photo by Globallookpress
The opening ceremony of the Olympics was bright and spectacular. And the athletes received awards on a colorful podium. AP Photo
And now this building reminds us of this. Photo by Globallookpress
Olympics in Turin (Italy). 2006
The Olympic Games in Turin were the second for Italy (the first were held in Cortina d'Ampezzo in 1956). The Italians, unlike many others, found use for almost all Olympic facilities. But they still haven’t decided what to do with the Olympic village...
The brand new Olympic Village in Turin... AP Photo
Now it is empty. Photo by Globallookpress
Olympics in Athens (Greece). 2004
The total cost of the 2004 Games was 7.202 billion euros, but the Greeks, like no one else, can complain that this money was thrown away. Perhaps it is in Athens, the birthplace of the Olympic Games, that the largest number of abandoned sports facilities remain.
During the opening ceremony everything looked very rosy. But after the end of the Olympics, only a few objects were used. Fotobank
The baseball stadium in Athens will soon be able to plant potatoes. Photo by Fotobank
On many sports facilities You can make horror films. Photo by Fotobank
Once upon a time, the flags of all countries participating in the Olympics hung here... Fotobank
Olympics in Beijing (PRC). 2008
One more summer games, for which incredible amounts of money were spent on the construction of facilities. Now even the Bird's Nest stadium, where the opening ceremony took place, is not used at all for sporting or cultural purposes, although usually the central Olympic stadium is used. For infrastructure development, transport system, 280 billion yuan (about 40.9 billion dollars) were spent on the environment of Beijing. Some of this money provided only short-term benefits.
Colorful opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics at the Bird's Nest Stadium
Now the unique structure is being sold piecemeal and not being used for its intended purpose.
Entrance to the waterway
And this is what the route itself looks like
Some buildings were decorated by craftsmen
It's not about the Olympics
Naturally, buildings become abandoned not only after the Olympics.
The baseball stadium in Indianapolis (USA) once attracted one full house after another. Now it looks more like a vegetable garden
Lakeside Speedway (Denver, Colorado) has hosted hundreds of thousands of racing fans since 1938. It was closed in 1988 due to the financial crisis that coincided with tragic death spectator
Football arena in Kyiv…
It used to be crowded here
Abandoned Dynamo swimming pool in Moscow
The first Lokomotiv stadium on Krasnopresnenskaya street
Abandoned Olympic hotel in Moscow
What awaits Sochi
According to the program developed by all Russian authorities, almost all Olympic venues will become the property of the Ministry of Sports. At the same time, some of the buildings after the Olympics will change their original purpose, and some objects will be completely transported to neighboring cities and regions.
Photo - ITAR - TASS
Olympic Stadium "Fisht"
What took place at the Games: opening and closing ceremonies.
Capacity: 40 000.
After the Games: the next one is really big sporting event expected in the summer of 2018 - the stadium will host matches of the World Cup. When free from grand tournaments, Fisht will operate as a multifunctional sports and entertainment center.
Photo ITAR - TASS
Ice Palace "Bolshoi"
What took place at the Games: matches hockey tournament, including the finale.
Capacity: 12 000.
After the Games: became the home arena KHL club"Sochi".
Photo ITAR - TASS
Ice Palace "Shaiba"
What took place at the Games: hockey tournament matches.
Capacity: 7000.
After the Games: the original plans for dismantling and subsequent reconstruction of the palace in one of the Russian cities, apparently, were not destined to come true due to design features. For now, it is planned to organize an all-Russian children's sports and educational center on the basis of Shaiba - a modernized version of Soviet sports boarding schools.
Photo ITAR - TASS
Curling center "Ice Cube"
What took place at the Games: curling competitions.
Capacity: 3000.
After the Games: At first they wanted to move the building to Rostov-on-Don. But in the end, the Ice Cube will remain in its place, but will be converted into a multifunctional shopping and entertainment center.
Photo ITAR - TASS
Sanki Center
What took place at the Games: competitions in luge, bobsleigh, skeleton.
Capacity: 5000.
After the Games: the center will be used as the main base for the Russian luge, bobsleigh and skeleton teams.
Photo ITAR - TASS
Ski center and extreme park "Rosa Khutor"
What took place at the Games: competitions in skiing, freestyle, snowboarding.
Capacity: from 4000 (freestyle) to 7500 (alpine skiing).
After the Games: it is planned to involve large number tourists.
Photo ITAR - TASS
The article uses materials from fototelegraf
