The real challenge begins now
LOOKING AHEAD There are lessons to be learnt from previous Winter Games hosts on what to do next
LONDON: For athletes and spectators at Sochi, it’s time to pack up. But for the host cities, the real challenge begins now. How do they continue to use the stadiums after the party’s over? What happens to the athletes’ villages? Here’s what some past Winter Games sites look like.
VANCOUVER, 2010
All games venues remain in use, with authorities funding a $110mn trust to make sure that they don’t fall into disrepair. The most successful is the Richmond Oval, a widely used community sports and events facility that attracts 550,000 visitors a year.
The athletes’ village has not fared so well. The city had to take over financing for the 1,100-unit village after the developer stopped payment on its construction loan due to cost overruns and the 2008 financial crisis. It has sold most units, but expects to lose $300mn.
NAGANO, 1998
Five large structures built for the 1998 Winter Games remain in use, though many complain that the venues are too costly to maintain for a town of less than 400,000 people. The Olympic Stadium has been converted into a baseball stadium, the Aqua Wing Arena into an aquatics center, and the Big Hat is still used for ice hockey and figure skating. The M-Wave hosted the World Sprint speed-skating championships last month, and the White Ring is used for professional basketball and volleyball.
SARAJEVO, 1984
Just eight years later, the bobsleigh and luge track on Mt Trbevic was turned into an artillery position from which Bosnian Serbs pounded the city. Today, the abandoned site is littered with graffiti.
Other Olympic mountains had turned into battlegrounds during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Afterward, most were dotted with land mines. The two ski jumping hills on Mt Igman were never used again; the ice dancing hall now lies next to a sea of white tombstones. Since Lillehammer 1994, there has been only day of competition in sub-zero temperature. A look at the daytime highs over the past five Winter Olympics, compared to the next venue — and two of India’s finest winter resorts — reveals a telling picture.
Temperatures in Gulmarg were much lower than Sochi; those in Auli, almost comparable to those in Lillehammer during the 1994 Games. But weather is the just the icing — the cake is the infrastructure. Given the hassle and cost of holding the Games, many of the traditional hosts are opting out. Voters in Switzerland have killed two Games bids (Bern, 2010 and St Moritz, 2022); Munich 2022 was similarly shot down
Sochi 2014 Delhi 2010 Participating nations
88 71 Athletes 2,800 Volunteers 25,000 Year Host Feb
6,000 22,000 -15 to -10 -10 to -5 -5 to 0 0 to 5 5 to 10 10 to 15 15 to 20 1994 Lillehammer■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ 1998 Nagano
2002 Salt Lake Cit■y
2006 Turin
2010 Vancouver
2014 Sochi
2018 Pyeongchang■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ Auli
Gulmarg
Figures in °Celsius