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 Many of the once-gleaming Olympic venues which crackled with
activity have been abandoned while others are used occasionally for
non-sporting events such as conferences and weddings.
At the former Olympic rowing center in the town of Marathon, which
gave its name to the endurance race, stray dogs play among overgrown
weeds as a dozen youths train in the water.
Across the city, the former canoe and kayak venue has dried up, and
entire banks of spectators' seats have been ripped out.
Just days before the anniversary of the Aug. 13-29 Games in 2004,
and as Brazil gears up for the 2016 Rio Olympics, many question how
Greece, among the smallest countries to ever host the Games, has
benefited from the multi-billion dollar event.
For Greeks who swelled with pride at the time, the Games are now a
source of anger as the country struggles through a six-year
depression, record unemployment, homelessness and poverty.
Greece has struggled to generate revenue from the venues.
"Celebrate for what?," said Eleni Goliou, who runs a grocery store
in the capital. "They spent money they didn't have - our money,
taxpayers' money - on a big party. You see any money left for a
celebration?" she asked with a shrug.
After failing in a bid to host the centennial Olympics in 1996,
Greece, founder of the ancient and modern Olympics, was awarded the
2004 Games after defeating favorites Rome.
JOYFUL REACTION
When then-International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Juan
Antonio Samaranch declared the result the Greek delegation,
including ex-Prime Minister George Papandreou - a minister at the
time - erupted with joy, waved flags and hugged one another.
The announcement, remixed by a DJ, was replayed on radio stations
and was subsequently even released as a single.
However, once the initial euphoria faded, Athens wasted the first
three years of its seven-year preparation period, only to be given a
warning by the IOC in 2000 to drastically step up its organization
efforts or risk losing the Games.
The country then embarked on a construction frenzy to complete the
projects a few weeks before the Games, paying lavishly for three
shifts a day to ensure venues were ready.
New trams, highways and a host of gleaming Olympic venues appeared
alongside outdated infrastructure in the sun-drenched capital of
four million people.
Banners proclaimed "Welcome Home" during the Games, which cost
Greece an estimated $11 billion - double initial projections.
"It was a waste of money and all for show. It cost a lot," said
Dimitris Mardas, economics professor at the Aristotle University of
Thessaloniki, who was the then-general secretary for trade.
Unlike other host cities whose venues included prefabricated,
collapsible structures, Athens opted for heavy buildings which "only
served the interests of contractors," Mardas said.
Greece's Public Properties Company (ETAD), which took over some of
the Olympic venues in 2011, dismisses criticism that they are in
poor condition, saying in a statement the facilities under its
supervision "are being maintained by specialized teams... while the
properties are guarded by security firms."
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LOST OPPORTUNITY
Like Athens, Rio, which will host the Games for the first time on the
South American continent, has come under fire for its slow progress,
with preparations slammed as the "worst ever" by IOC vice-president John
Coates in April.
In an effort to reassure the world they can deliver the facilities on
time, Brazilian authorities unveiled in the same month an infrastructure
budget of 24.1 billion reais ($10.76 billion) for the Games, 25 percent
more than planned.
This would have come as no surprise to researchers at Oxford University
who studied the Games held from 1960 to 2012 and found that, while other
mega-projects are on budget from time to time, the Games overrun with
100 percent consistency.
Greece had a cost overrun of 97 percent, they said.
"For a city and nation to decide to host the Olympic Games is to take on
one of the most financially risky type of mega project that exists,"
researchers Bent Flyvbjerg and Allison Stewart wrote. "Something that
many cities and nations have learned to their peril."
For supporters of the Games, Greece's failure is not in how much they
cost or the state of the venues today. After all, not all are in dire
condition - the Olympic Broadcast Centre is a bustling mall, the
badminton venue is a theater and venues at the site of the former Athens
airport have been sold.
Rather, they complain that subsequent governments failed to capitalize
on the Olympic legacy and use it to boost tourism in the country, its
biggest industry. Just a year after the Olympics, hotels built for
spectators closed down.
"The (economic) crisis should have been the extra push, the pressure to
capitalize on the Olympic legacy," said Stratos Safioleas, a spokesman
during the 2004 Games and a consultant for Olympic bids and organizing
committees since, including the winter Games in South Korea in 2018.
"The Games were a lost opportunity, no doubt about it. But we still have
Ancient Olympia, we still have Marathon. The question is, when are we
going to stop missing opportunities?"
Greece's Hellenic Olympic Committee denies accusations that costs to
host the Games contributed to Greece's debt crisis that exploded in 2009
and forced it to seek two bailouts worth 240 billion euros ($320.14
billion) from the EU and IMF.
"They cost 8.5 billion euros. Was the 8 billion to blame when Greece
owed 360 billion?" Hellenic Olympic Committee head Spyros Kapralos said.
"If you put it on a scale, the positives outweigh the negatives but
unfortunately we weren't able to communicate that," the former water
polo player told Reuters. "The face of the city changed."
($1 = 0.7497 Euros)
(Editing by Ken Ferris)
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