Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Post-Olympic Abandonment

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 158 posts

Re: Post-Olympic Abandonment

#21

Post by StevePerkins »

lhopki01 wrote: post #4

There are many articles about abandoned Olympic venues but I've never seen one about successful former Olympic venues. I'd like to see what happened to all the venues in London and Beijing. From my bit of knowledge a lot of the London ones were temporary or have been successfully transitioned.

Atlanta has always felt snubbed by hostility from the IOC, who didn't like the level of private corporate sponsorship used to fund the 1996 Games (nevermind that two decades later, it would be considered modestly quaint today).

However, it was overwhelmingly a successful Games. It created a lasted economic boom, and much of the construction saw continued use or was repurposed afterward.

Today, Atlanta is not really remembered as a "bad" Olympics (because international sports organizatinos like the IOC and FIFA have become more disgustingly capitalistic than we ever were). We are likewise not really remembered as an "success" story either, frankly because most cultural commentary prefers not to think about southern American cities at all outside the context of sweeping generalizations about racism (1). But quietly, it was an example of a success story for the host city.

(1) Yeah, between the '96 Games and this year's Super Bowl, Atlanta sports fans are a pretty bitter crowd. Don't mind us!

Re: Post-Olympic Abandonment

#22

Post by danpalmer »

lhopki01 wrote: post #4

There are many articles about abandoned Olympic venues but I've never seen one about successful former Olympic venues. I'd like to see what happened to all the venues in London and Beijing. From my bit of knowledge a lot of the London ones were temporary or have been successfully transitioned.

I live next to the olympic park in Stratford and it's pretty great.

- The main stadium is now the local football team's home ground and gets used for concerts as well.

- The olympic pool is an open public pool that anyone can use and looks like it gets a fair amount of use.

- The park itself is a nice open space to be in with lots more flats and shops being built in and around it.

- I have several colleagues who train at the velodrome.

- The athletes housing created thousands of new flats that, are pretty much filled and provided a lot of homes for low income families.

I really like living in Stratford and I don't think I would like it anywhere near as much if the olympics hadn't been there.

Re: Post-Olympic Abandonment

#23

Post by roystonvassey »

'Average overrun for Games since 1960 is 156% in real terms' [1]. On the whole, costs of hosting Olympic Games is a net-negative for most cities.

I think it isn't as popular as it once was in attracting tourists; soccer world cups are probably better for that. Given that this is the case, they should just fix one host city/country and host the Olympics only there. It will save unnecessary expenses, especially for developing nations such as Brazil.

EDIT: Added source here

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_the_Olympic_Games

Re: Post-Olympic Abandonment

#24

Post by thegavsie »

danpalmer wrote: post #22
lhopki01 wrote: post #4

There are many articles about abandoned Olympic venues but I've never seen one about successful former Olympic venues. I'd like to see what happened to all the venues in London and Beijing. From my bit of knowledge a lot of the London ones were temporary or have been successfully transitioned.

I live next to the olympic park in Stratford and it's pretty great. - The main stadium is now the local football team's home ground and gets used for concerts as well. - The olympic pool is an open public pool that anyone can use and looks like it gets a fair amount of use. - The park itself is a nice open space to be in with lots more flats and shops being built in and around it. - I have several colleagues who trai…

Even living in a different part of London (Wimbledon), we have the benefits of reusing the equipment. 200 tonnes of sand and the nets from the beach volleyball event were used to make two new beach volleyball courts in Wimbledon Park which are used all the time.

Re: Post-Olympic Abandonment

#25

Post by pablobaz »

danpalmer wrote: post #22
lhopki01 wrote: post #4

There are many articles about abandoned Olympic venues but I've never seen one about successful former Olympic venues. I'd like to see what happened to all the venues in London and Beijing. From my bit of knowledge a lot of the London ones were temporary or have been successfully transitioned.

I live next to the olympic park in Stratford and it's pretty great. - The main stadium is now the local football team's home ground and gets used for concerts as well. - The olympic pool is an open public pool that anyone can use and looks like it gets a fair amount of use. - The park itself is a nice open space to be in with lots more flats and shops being built in and around it. - I have several colleagues who trai…

The olympic whitewater course at Lee valley is also heavily used and a great facility.

Re: Post-Olympic Abandonment

#26

Post by duiker101 »

danpalmer wrote: post #22
lhopki01 wrote: post #4

There are many articles about abandoned Olympic venues but I've never seen one about successful former Olympic venues. I'd like to see what happened to all the venues in London and Beijing. From my bit of knowledge a lot of the London ones were temporary or have been successfully transitioned.

I live next to the olympic park in Stratford and it's pretty great. - The main stadium is now the local football team's home ground and gets used for concerts as well. - The olympic pool is an open public pool that anyone can use and looks like it gets a fair amount of use. - The park itself is a nice open space to be in with lots more flats and shops being built in and around it. - I have several colleagues who trai…

Another thing from the article that struck me as good for London is how little it costed compared to the others

> The games set back Sochi $51 billion, London $11.6 billion and Beijing at least $40 billion

That is no small amount, I wonder how much of it was corruption and bad management.

Re: Post-Olympic Abandonment

#27

Post by misterhtmlcss »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #16
lhopki01 wrote: post #4

There are many articles about abandoned Olympic venues but I've never seen one about successful former Olympic venues. I'd like to see what happened to all the venues in London and Beijing. From my bit of knowledge a lot of the London ones were temporary or have been successfully transitioned.

The venues from the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary are forming the basis of their 2026 bid, so they must still be in good shape.

We hosted the only Olympics in history that I've heard of that turned a profit. I live in Calgary and we still talk about how unique it was compared to other Olympics around the world.

There are definitely some winners post-Olympics, but honestly I don't think they make sense anymore. Seems that Olympics has gone down the wrong path in so many ways with the demands from the IOC requiring bigger and bigger budgets, private organizations taking stricter and stricter control over content even social media that it's just not the same any more when compared to 20+ years ago.

I remember feeling an emotion for the older Olympics that's just not there as much anymore.

Re: Post-Olympic Abandonment

#28

Post by arrrg »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #10
lhopki01 wrote: post #4

There are many articles about abandoned Olympic venues but I've never seen one about successful former Olympic venues. I'd like to see what happened to all the venues in London and Beijing. From my bit of knowledge a lot of the London ones were temporary or have been successfully transitioned.

Munich 1972 is relatively successful in it's afterlife: * The Olympic village is rented out, among other things with relatively cheap apartments for students * The Olympic Stadium serves as stadium for FC Bayern and TSV 1860 football (soccer) clubs till 2002 and in summer for open air concerts, in recent years there also had been "fun sport" events and track&field competiotions * The Olympic swimming arena is a busy…

Our first stop in Munich was the Olympic Park and we were quite surprised how beautiful and alive the place was.

Entering the swimming hall we immediately wanted to go swimming (but sadly didn’t have the proper gear with us). When you enter the hall you overlook the Olympic pool (there is no wall or glass separating you from the noise and the smell) and that’s very tempting.

If you visit Munich I would recommend visiting the Olympic Park, but do bring you bathing things, just in case.

Re: Post-Olympic Abandonment

#29

Post by wjoe »

krona wrote: post #15
lhopki01 wrote: post #4

There are many articles about abandoned Olympic venues but I've never seen one about successful former Olympic venues. I'd like to see what happened to all the venues in London and Beijing. From my bit of knowledge a lot of the London ones were temporary or have been successfully transitioned.

Perhaps lesser known, but I've heard IOC members mention in interviews on the subject that they thought the 1994 winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway offers one of the best templates for Olympic sustainability. It hosted the 2016 Winter Youth Olympics, too.

One interesting use of a Winter Olympic venue - the sports arena in Hamar, which was used as an ice skating arena in the Lillehammer Winter Olympics is used once a year for The Gathering, a massive LAN party with around 5000 attendees, and it's also used throughout the year for winter sports too, they add and remove the ice as needed.

Re: Post-Olympic Abandonment

#30

Post by rangibaby »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #10
lhopki01 wrote: post #4

There are many articles about abandoned Olympic venues but I've never seen one about successful former Olympic venues. I'd like to see what happened to all the venues in London and Beijing. From my bit of knowledge a lot of the London ones were temporary or have been successfully transitioned.

Munich 1972 is relatively successful in it's afterlife: * The Olympic village is rented out, among other things with relatively cheap apartments for students * The Olympic Stadium serves as stadium for FC Bayern and TSV 1860 football (soccer) clubs till 2002 and in summer for open air concerts, in recent years there also had been "fun sport" events and track&field competiotions * The Olympic swimming arena is a busy…

The Munich olympics were also a great chance for the great graphic designers of the time to show off their system. The event icons lasted for many olympics after.
Post reply on HN