Our reporters in the three previous host cities give their verdicts on what the games have left behind
Beijing 2008
BY CLIFFORD COONAN
The Beijing 2008 sign on the road to the airport in the Chinese capital has faded, but it is still visible, a reminder of the time, four years ago, when the city hosted a memorable Olympiad. One World, One Dream was the motto as the communist government went into investment overdrive to ensure everything from the opening ceremony to the fabric of the city symbolised China’s return as a great nation.
Economy
Every year since Chinese GDP expanded by double-digit percentages until this year, when the economy looks set to grow by about 8 per cent. Thus the Olympics became inseparable in people's minds from the rise of China's financial might. The official line is that Beijing spent €2.5 billion, slightly ahead of budget, on staging the event and that profit came to slightly more than €128 million. But most unofficial estimates reckon China spent in the region of €30 billion, or around four times what Britain is spending.
Sports facilities
Some sports venues have fared better than others. The rowing, beach-volleyball and cycling venues look disused, and there is a big gap where the baseball venue used to be. The most enduring of the Olympic constructions was the Bird's Nest. More than 4.5 million people visited the Olympic Park last year, although the €400 million stadium is too big to be a regular sports venue. The National Aquatic Centre or Water Cube, in which the US swimmer Michael Phelps took eight gold medals, has been a surprising success as a water park.
Architecture
The architectural transformation of Beijing has left a lasting legacy. The infrastructure was upgraded, and ancient hutong alleyways and courtyard houses were swept aside. Probably the most startling Olympic construction was the HQ of China’s state broadcaster CCTV (pictured). The outside of the building opened for the games, but the inside was not ready. Designed by Rem Koolhaas, the building now looks as if it will be ready by the time of the London games. Its opening was delayed after a fire at a nearby hotel.
Human rights
When it won the right to stage the games, China made promises about improving human rights. There has been progress on many fronts. Foreign reporters are still allowed to travel freely around the country, except Tibet, and the rise of Weibo, a site like Twitter, has let Chinese people express their views much more openly. But there have also been setbacks. The Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo is in prison; the artist and activist Ai Weiwei, who helped design the Olympic Stadium, remains under surveillance; and press freedom has not improved.
Athens 2004
BY DAMIAN MAC CON ULADH
Denied the opportunity to host the centennial Olympics in 1996, Greece intensified its efforts and won the bid for the 2004 event. The Greeks pulled off a spectacular games but at great expense. Athens had the misfortune to host the first Olympiad in the post-9/11 era, and, under intense pressure from the US and UK, the government spent €1 billion on security, four times the amount spent in Sydney in 2000.
Economy
In many ways the 2004 games, characterised by huge overspending and a lack of long-term planning, were a microcosm of Greek economics and politics. The government said the event cost about €9 billion to host (excluding transport infrastructure), double the original budget. The number of tourists increased after the games but has dropped since. Many of the problems of Greek tourism – much of the infrastructure dates from the 1970s – remained, and now the industry is reporting one of its worst seasons in years.
Sports facilities
In the rush to complete two dozen venues for the Olympics, the government put little or no thought into their use after the games. With a few exceptions, such as the main Olympic stadium, which has hosted soccer internationals and a U2 concert and is the temporary home ground of the Athens side Panathinaikos, most of the venues have been idle since 2004. (The abandoned canoeing and kayaking stadium is pictured.) Plans by successive governments to put them to use have come to nothing, in perhaps the greatest scandal of the Athens games.
Infrastructure
The greatest legacy of the Athens games are the many transportation projects that helped reduce reliance on the car in getting around the capital. Huge infrastructure projects, many in the pipeline for decades, were completed ahead of the games, transforming the capital. They included a suburban rail line linking Athens with Corinth, in the Peloponnese, two metro lines, a tramway system, a 65km tolled motorway running along the north and west of Athens and a new airport.
Feelgood factor
Greeks remember 2004 not only for their success in staging the Olympics but also for their remarkable victory in the European football championships weeks earlier. These successes followed a general election in March that returned the conservative New Democracy party to power for the first time in 11 years. Eight years on, that optimism has been smashed on the rocks of profligate spending, the debt crisis and, now, austerity. As the head of the athletics federation said recently, the country has gone from heaven to hell since 2004.
Sydney 2000
BY PÁDRAIG COLLINS
On September 15th, 2010, thousands of people who worked as volunteers during the Sydney Olympics gathered for a 10th-anniversary reunion. As they revisited facilities they had carefully stewarded, and watched the relighting of the Olympic cauldron, they were justifiably proud of their part in Sydney's hosting of the games. But not every aspect of the legacy is as well preserved as the volunteers' blue uniforms.
Economy
A PwC report on the Sydney games concluded that they helped inject billions into the economy, including more than €5 billion on infrastructure. The Olympics enhanced the business profile of Sydney, and of Australia in general, through so much exposure. But the state government had little money left to build infrastructure for the future, and although tourism got a big boost, numbers soon levelled off. On the 10th anniversary of the games, Chris Brown, then managing director of the Tourism and Transport Forum, said politicians had squanderered an opportunity.
Sports facilities
There wouldn’t be much point in your country’s hosting the Olympics unless you were left with some gleaming stadiums – and then made sure to use them. The aquatic centre, the Superdome, the tennis centre and the regatta centre are all still functioning but they are hardly swamped with bookings. The Olympic stadium can be a soulless behemoth when it is half- or three-quarters empty, as it often is for matches, but when it is packed to the rafters, such as on the night Australia qualified for the 2006 World Cup, it is fabulous.
Reconciliation
The country’s modern relationship with indigenous Australians began on September 15th, 2000, when Cathy Freeman lit the Olympic cauldron (pictured) in a stunning opening ceremony. Ten days later she won the 400 metres and carried both the Australian and Aboriginal flags on her victory lap. Aborigines are still more likely to be poor or incarcerated and to suffer from ill health than the general population, but the continued success of indigenous athletes shows how investment in Aboriginal youth pays off.
Feel-good factor
Before the Sydney games, many foreigners, if they thought about Australia at all, thought one of three things: Crocodile Dundee, kangaroos or Home and Away. The Olympics changed all that. Sydney was rightly recognised as one of the world’s great cities. Disused and polluted industrial land was reclaimed, and more than 400 hectares of wetlands, woodlands and remediated lands were created, along with more than 40km of pedestrian and cycle paths. Hosting the Olympics made Australians proud of who they are. That’s gold.
