Greece's Olympic legacy: Billions spent, facilities in ruin

It's no secret that Greece had spent a lot of money in building state-of-the-art facilities. But then after the construction, there was no budget, admitted Spyros Capralos, head of the Greek Olympic Committee, in an interview with AFP.

Greece failed to leverage the legacy of the 2004 Olympics. Data from the finance ministry indicates that organizing the event cost 8.5 billion euros (CAD 12.7 billion), reported AFP.

The facilities built or renovated for the Olympics met different fates. The Olympic complex north of Athens is still used for sports. Some dilapidated buildings were demolished; others are used, among other things, as a shopping centre, university, or police shooting range.

For example, several Olympic arenas or training facilities built for the games in the city of Elliniko, south of Athens, which decayed over the years, were demolished. A private infrastructure project is underway on the site, including apartments, hotels, a casino, and a park.

In April, local authorities reported that 314 bombs from World War II were found in Elliniko during construction work. The explosives were discovered at a depth of about 7 feet, for example, under facilities built for the Olympics.

In the fall of last year, the Athens Olympic Stadium, renovated for the games, was closed for safety reasons but was reopened in May. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis emphasized that the stadium "had not been maintained for 20 years."

He also announced the allocation of 57 million euros (approximately CAD 85 million) for the renovation of the entire Olympic complex. "Who doesn't feel disappointed when seeing images of such important facilities left to decay for so many years?" he wrote on social media.

Greek authorities emphasized that due to the financial crisis that erupted in Greece in 2009, they could not allocate funds to maintain the facilities.

"I've been saying that to every minister of sport when he was taking over, please do some maintenance work in our sports facilities," Capralos stressed. "Because we do not need new facilities, we need to maintain the existing facilities that we have," he added.

Costas Cartalis, who oversaw the construction phase on behalf of the state from 2001-04, said that the games were "forgotten -- and so was the obligation to utilise the venues." According to him, this is "a permanent problem with public infrastructure" in Greece.

According to Capralos, Athens' experience shows that in today’s world, cities hosting the Olympics should not build permanent facilities that won’t be used after the event.

In 2020, an initiative called "Olympic Vision" was launched in Greece, promoting the idea of permanently moving the Games to Greece, where the ancient Olympics were born. The proponent of the initiative, Theotoki Ntolaptsi, emphasized in an interview with the Greek Reporter that constantly changing the event's location is a huge waste of money and human labour. She added that the event organizers could be a city or a country, even one with smaller economic capabilities.