Summary List Placement
- The venues from Rio 2016 were already falling apart just two years after their games.
- Other facilities suffered similar fates as billions of dollars worth of buildings are rotting away.
- Pyeongchang avoided such a fate, as they planned to demolish their Olympic stadium when the games were over.
- Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Hosting the Olympics can be an economic burden on a country, especially if the host nation has to build venues. Throughout Olympic history, we’ve seen that once the games are over, these venues often become abandoned, crumbling as they go unused.
The venues from Rio 2016 were already falling apart just two years after their games, and they’re not the only ones. Former host cities like Saravejo, Athens, and Beijing have had venues suffer the same fate.
Take a look at some photos below.
Sam Belden and Emmett Knowlton contributed to this report. This report was originally published in 2018.
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In 2016, Rio de Janeiro hosted the first Olympic Games in Latin America in nearly 40 years.
The city has yet to clear away much of the debris created by the Games. Here’s what’s left of the Rio Media Center, demolished in September.
The site has become a health hazard. It is located in downtown Rio, close to public facilities like city hall, a convention center and a day care.
Many Olympic sites are littered with rusty metal.
Maracana Stadium, where the football tournament was held.
The grass is almost completely dry.
Looters ransacked the stadium back in January, taking items like televisions, fire extinguishers and a statue.
Source:BBC
Aquatics facilities are also in disrepair. This one was covered by translucent tapestries before they started to wear away.
It looks even worse without them.
Inside, the stadium is deserted. Puddles of stagnant water cover the floors, creating a breeding ground for mosquitoes.
The facility’s exterior isn’t much better. The city was supposed to tear down the aquatics stadium soon after the Olympics, but no progress has been made so far.
The Olympic golf course is mostly deserted. There are sometimes only three or four groups playing at a time.
Source: Golf.com
The course cost around $20 million to build.
Source:Golf.com
Olympic signage continues to loom throughout the city.
A view of Rio from the mostly abandoned Olympic Park.
Rio’s Olympic Village. Thousands of apartments remain unoccupied.
This water tank has been abandoned.
So were most of the city’s efforts to clean up Guanabara Bay. The bay was the site of the sailing and other open-water events.
Cleaning up Guanabara Bay was a big part of Rio’s successful bid to host the Games.
Source: One of the sites for the 2016 Summer Olympics is completely filthy, and it’s going to stay that way
Lying in Rio’s rubble are thousands of pamphlets from the Games — scars of an Olympics that proved to be more than the city bargained for.
Sarajevo hosted the Winter Olympics in 1984.
One decade later, civil war broke out and ravaged the country.
Some of the Olympic venues were repurposed and used as military facilities.
Source: REUTERS
The bobsled facility was turned into an artillery stronghold during the war.
Source: REUTERS
Today the heavily graffitied course is sometimes used for BMX races.
A dog walks past the Kosevo Stadium, where the opening ceremonies were held.
And weeds grow over the walls of the Kosevo Stadium.
The abandoned ski jump at Mount Igman.
Seating is overrun with grass and weeds.
Another angle of the ski jump.
The track itself is covered in debris.
The ski jump through a broken window.
This is what’s left of the figure skating facility, Zetra Hall.
Atlanta hosted the Summer Olympics in 1996. The Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium was used for baseball, but was demolished in 1997. The space was turned into 4,000 parking spaces.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The cauldron was moved from Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Stadium when the stadium was renamed Turner Field and repurposed for the Braves. The cauldron now sits idly overlooking a highway.
Source: Around the Rings
Beijing hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics, and will host the 2022 Winter Olympics.
A sign from the area where the baseball stadium once stood.
A stray dog on a field that was once inside the baseball stadium.
A make-shift broom lying in what was once an Olympic «green area.»
Tourists stand to take pictures next to the rings in a former «green area» from the Olympics.
The parking lot for the cycling stadium is now used for driving tests.
Source: REUTERS
A rusting sign from the kayaking facility.
A security guard with a flat tire from his bicycle at the kayaking venue.
Source: REUTERS
The three empty poles in the left of the shot once flew country flags of medal-winning Olympians.
Source: REUTERS
The BMX facility.
Many of their stadiums are shut out from the public, like the beach volleyball facility.
A promotional banner for beach volleyball still stands.
Panels on the outsides of the beach volleyball facility are falling off.
A boat sails past the stands and observation tower from the rowing facility.
The polluted waters near the facility.
Athens went $15 billion over budget to prepare for the 2004 Summer Olympics.
Source: IMF
Greece shouldered the cost overruns, and many of the facilities have fallen into disuse.
Source: Bloomberg
The Olympic village is totally abandoned.
The city planned to turn the Olympic village into public housing.
Source: Telegraph
Thousands of families applied to live there, but the whole project fell through.
Source: Telegraph
Seating areas are overgrown with weeds.
And stairs and totally covered in rust.
The canoe and kayak facility was the first in Olympic history to be filled with salt water rather than fresh water.
Source: NYT
Now it’s abandoned.
And completely dry in patches.
There’s graffiti everywhere.
Beach volleyball practice courts are growing wild.
The beach volleyball venue from a distance.
Inside, it’s a nightmare.
And totally useless.
Weeds are everywhere.
A diving center is drained.
A pool at the Olympic Village is filthy.
And totally polluted.
Frogs have found homes, at least.
The tracks are still used by some, but it doesn’t mean they’re in good shape.
The field hockey facility.
And an old podium.
In Turin, where the 2006 Winter Olympics were held, the Olympic village isn’t abandoned, but has become housing for migrants and refugees.
Read more: The 2006 Turin Olympics athletes village is now home to over 1,000 African migrants and refugees
It wasn’t planned for such. After a migration program ended, many migrants and refugees were left without a place to go, so they took over the abandoned apartments.
Some spaces have been repurposed as classrooms where the occupants learn English and Italian.
Source: insider.com
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