Now that the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics is over, attention turns to the Games’ legacy.
One of the main selling points for prospective hosts during the bidding process is the infrastructure that will be left behind for both athletes and the general population to make use of.
But history is littered with examples of millions being spent to host the summer or winter Games, only for the stadiums, courts and Olympic villages to fall into disrepair.
The abandoned and derelict buildings and massive sites that once were teeming fans are a stark reminder of what it looks like when organisers get it wrong.
As a major European city, Milan seems unlikely to fall into that trap but it is worth a trip around the world to see what happens when future-proofing fails.
From the swimming pools of the Berlin 1936 Games collecting grime, to pictures of Rio de Janeiro’s crumbling facilities that cost billions – here’s a look at the post-apocalyptic-looking worst offenders.
Berlin – 1936
The Olympic village for the Berlin Games back in 1936 was home to 5,000 athletes but is now eerily empty.
That edition of the Games took place three years into Adolf Hitler’s Nazi rule and he was desperate to provide a show of might to the world.
The site was built on 550,000 square metres of land owned by the military, possibly why many of the buildings look like barracks.
The old venues were abandoned until 2004 when the Berlin authorities started a restoration process and now there is a museum for people to explore the fascinating and dark history of the area.
A swimming pool lies abandoned in the former swim hall of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Village
There is also an abandoned gym situated at the site that played host to the Games
The land used to host the Games belonged to the military so the Olympic Village looked unsurprisingly like an army base
Sarajevo – 1984
From one city with a history of conflict to another. Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, hosted the Winter Olympics 42 years ago.
Only six years after the city hosted, the site was a warzone as Yugoslavia fell.
Ski slopes were turned into mining sites and hotels that housed fans and athletes became prisons.
Sarajevo was the first Winter Olympics held in a soviet country at the time and the difference in the images of the competition during peace time and the aftermath is stark.
The abandoned shell of a hotel constructed for the 1984 Winter Olympics
The now abandoned ski jumping site on Mount Igman is now explored by intrepid visitors
The Games took place a few years before war gripped the region and ruined the site
Greece – 2004
Athens is one of the more cosmopolitan cities on this list but has suffered for different reasons, notably the financial crash that devastated the Greek economy.
The Games returned to the site of its origin back in 2004 and cost £7.8billion to put on.
It was a massive sense of pride that gripped the nation at the time and despite numerous delays to construction and fears about whether the venues would be ready, the Games went off without a hitch.
Now, the Olympics is tainted in the minds of many Greeks after the country was plunged into a depression and suffered brutally with unemployment and poverty.
The abandoned sites that the government pumped so much money into offer a constant reminder of the troubling time.
The site previously used for the canoe-kayak course in Athens is pictured in 2012 abandoned
The stands of various arenas constructed at great cost now lie empty and rusting
Greece went on to suffer massively from a recession and the spending on the Games has not aged well in the minds of the population
Beijing – 2008
The opening ceremony of the Beijing Games was almost unparalleled in scale, organisation and wow-factor.
China had pumped an extraordinary amount of money into playing the perfect host, spending a total of £28billion.
The government were ruthless in their pursuit of perfection and even infamously rehomed citizens, bulldozing areas for purpose-built venues that would only be used for two weeks.
If there’s one symbolic image of the waste, it is the Fuwa (the bright-coloured cartoonish mascots) sitting abandoned in the undergrowth of a planned shopping mall that was never completed.
The BMX stadium built especially for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing is now overgrown
Mascots used for the Games are toppled over and symbolic of the legacy
A stadium built for beach volleyball now sits abandoned, pictured back in 2018
Cooling fans under the volleyball stadium were put in at huge cost and are now rusting
Two people can be seen tending to a vegetable plot in the site previously used in 2008
Rio de Janeiro – 2016
The damning fact about the Rio Games a decade ago is that venues fell into disrepair less than a year after Brazil hosted.
At the Maracana, the power company cut off supply over unpaid bills, copper wire was stolen and seats torn off by vandals and thieves.
The tennis centre and velodrome did not attract any investors or operators after the Games so were left to rot.
And the Olympic Park itself is now a ghost town, completely deserted in what has been a massive failure of the government to offer some kind of sustainability or protect their investment.
The athletes’ village of 8,000 square metres was supposed to be turned into desirable housing but has priced out many residents.
‘These are the Games of transformation that will transform the city and leave a legacy, such as mobility,’ Municipal Olympic Company President Joaquim Monteiro said at the time. But that promise almost seems laughable now.
The site used as an aquatics centre during the Rio Games now lies abandoned
The legacy of the Olympics in 2016 has been almost non existent and the site fell into disrepair
A total of 3,604 apartments sit empty that were once used by 18,000 athletes
Huge amount of money were spent on the Rio Games but it has not stood the test of time
