Is hosting the Olympics a poisoned chalice?
IT IS supposed to be the greatest honour you can bestow on a city: granting it the opportunity to showcase the splendour of its sites and letting it welcome in the world.
But hosting the Olympic Games is increasingly being seen as an unnecessary burden and, with a decision on the 2024 games made later this year, some are beginning to wonder whether there will even be a real contest.
Just three cities are vying to host the sporting spectacle: Budapest, Paris and Los Angeles.
Hamburg, Rome and Boston abandoned their bids and what is already the shortest shortlist in recent Olympic history could soon drop to two.
More than a quarter of a million Hungarians have signed a petition calling for a referendum to be held over whether the Budapest bid is retracted.
On Friday, Istvan Tarlos, the mayor of Budapest, said he will meet Prime Minister Viktor Orban this week to decide if the city should withdraw from the contest.
Of most concern, unsurprisingly, is cost.
Russia is thought to have spent $50 billion (£40 billion) on the Sochi Winter Olympics. China is believed to have spent at least $40billion (£32billion) on the 2008 Beijing Games.
The cost overrun when Athens hosted in 2004 and the debt the country took on helped weaken the Greek economy, which remains in crisis.
It took Montreal 30 years to pay off the debt it took on to finance the huge cost overrun of the 1976 Games.
Proponents of the Games say they boost tourism and leave lasting improvements to infrastructure.
The benefits host cities can capture from broadcast rights, domestic and international sponsors, ticket sales, and licensing are significant, but gains are dwarfed by the costs.
Vancouver made $1.58billion (£1.27 billion) in 2010, but spent $7.56billion (£6.1billion). London earned $3.27billion (£2.63 billion) in 2012, but the games cost $11.4 billion (£9.18 billion).
LA’s bid team say their Games will cost $5.3 billion (£4.3 billion), which they believe will be covered by revenue from broadcasting rights, corporate sponsorship and ticket sales. Savings are being made by using existing infrastructure.
“LA is an ideal, low-risk host for the 2024 Games. We have the right plan in place to make sure that a winning bid brings a lasting Olympic legacy,” said Eric Garcetti, the city mayor.
Paris says its $7billion (£5.6billion) bid would also use existing infrastructure, having learnt from the costly mistakes of Rio.
And yet there are even concerns surrounding these cities – the two most likely remaining candidates.
Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, was initially sceptical about the cost – although she has since become one of the most enthusiastic proponents.
The French capital’s bid may also face questions about security in the wake of several high-profile terrorist attacks.
In Los Angeles, some city officials are deeply concerned about the prospect of holding the games while Donald Trump may still be in power.
Following the president’s short-lived imposition of a travel ban on most citizens of seven Muslim countries, officials from Los Angeles 2024 and the US Olympic Committee spoke to Mr Trump’s officials to ensure Iran’s archery team would be able to attend a World Cup event in Las Vegas last week.
Derick Hulme, an Olympic historian at Alma College, Michigan, said the International Olympic Committee (IOC) would be “hesitant” to choose Los Angeles and described the Trump administration as “a catastrophe” for the city’s bid.
“They’re not looking for problems. At this point they want to avoid uncertainty, and Trump makes a US bid a significant risk,” he said.
Other analysts denied Mr Trump affected the bid’s prospects.
Robert Livingstone, senior producer for the Toronto-based GamesBids.com, said: “The IOC has done business with China, they’ve done business with Russia. I don’t think they’re going to have a problem with Trump.”
The final decision will not be made until September, at a gathering in Lima, the Peruvian capital.