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Comment by lhopki01 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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!

It's remembered as a publicity stunt for Coca-Cola, no?

For me the thing that comes to mind most readily is the FBI screwing up and accusing that one poor dude of setting that bomb...

They're supposedly making a film about Richard Jewell starring Jonah Hill. I'm not sure who else is attached. It might be in development hell at this point as the film was first announced several years ago.

I always remember the extra cheering the team of the country of Georgia received during the parade of nations. Some Georgians probably confused the state they are in with the country :-)

https://youtu.be/5Fmk2bS8OWk?t=350

Damn straight.

The aquatic center is still in use at GA Tech. And Tech also got a lot of new housing from the Olympic Village, and a nice new student center.

The Olympic Stadium turned into Turner Field, which will now be a stadium for GA State University.

I believe the velodrome is still in use, although not totally sure about that.

Basically, Atlanta planned very well for the post-Olympic legacy. And I think we threw a pretty good Olympics, all in all. Yeah, there was lots of advertising, but because of it, the city didn't go into tremendous debt.

Plus our opening ceremonies were the world debut of wacky waving inflatable arms guy, so that's gotta count for something.

Not to mention Centennial Olympic park is a venue for concerts and events.

Are you going to Shaky Knees? I'm always eager to meet other Atlanta-area engineers, especially if they have similar music tastes.

Apologies, I'm no longer in the Atlanta area. Maybe a local Meetup group perhaps?

The Velodrome is not still in use. There is an outdoor concrete Velodrome in East Point which is heavily used, but it was not an Olympic venue.

I lived for a couple years in housing that was built for the Olympics when I went to GT. It was a nice building.

I also used the aquatic center a couple times to practice kayaking. The coolest part about that pool was you could lower the floor.

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.

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.

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

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.

Corruption played a big part, but Sochi had zero infrastructure at the start, it all had to be built from wholecloth, and Beijing need to transform large parts of an existing city to become an international showpiece. London already has incredible infrastructure and is already iconic. It seems that the strategy the London Olympics really used was to simply extend off of the existing systems in place and build up in a cheap area bringing new economic development to that area instead of trying to retrofit the city core.

I believe they purposely "underspent" to not waste money as well, and remember a Chinese friend commenting on how quaint the ceremonies/facilities were. Turns out we should be aiming for London, rather than Beijing.

My friends and I were joking before that Olympics that organizing it was just writing a bunch of letters. To Wimbledon for tennis courts, to FA for Wembeley, etc. Others were probably building from scratch.

The facilities built for the 2012 Olympic sailing at Weymouth are now home of the National Sailing Academy, and are really well used. In fact I'll be there this weekend with my son along with about 200 other young sailors.

http://www.wpnsa.org.uk/

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 public bath (one rare chance to swim Olympic distances, most other pools are shorter) * The Olympic hall is used for trade fair events, bicycle races, share holder meetings, concerts, ... and is quite well booked * The canoeing tracks etc. are still in use by clubs * The horse riding arena is still used * The Olympic park is a popular place to hang out * For the bicycle racing area there had been different attempts for a use but they failed * There is a small train station with some tracks which wasn't used since 1972 (or maybe since football (soccer) world championship 1974?) this is supposed to become a cycling path "soon"

Plus, the press center tower now serves several companies as offices (with a very nice view from the top onto the Olympic park with the stadium).

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.

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.

Well, I can tell you about the Olympic Park in London. It's used a lot. My kids have their swimming lessons in the olympic pool, and friends kids have diving lessons there. A friend of mine is a coach who runs sessions in the velodrome, BMX and mountain biking tracks. The downsized stadium is now home to West Ham - although fans aren't greatly enamoured with their new stadium which is mixed athletics/football, so the atmosphere is perhaps missing.

During the summer we go there a lot the playgrounds and gardens are gorgeous. Yes, a lot of the temporary venues have gone and there is a vigorous building programme, building both flats and office space.

Salt Lake City still very actively uses almost all venues, even year-round.

My impression was that Sydney also did well with it’s infrastructure after the games. Maybe a result of a sports-hungry public?

The main Olympic park is about 45' outside of the CBD, but it's regularly used. All the football codes (plus more) use the main Olympic Stadium, the surrounding venues are regularly in use too

https://www.olympic.org/news/sydney-s-olympic-venues-provide...

Olympics in Sydney was a money pit. An expensive legacy. I'm not sure if the events followed since then had allowed recovery.

http://theconversation.com/hosting-the-olympics-cash-cow-or-...

http://economicstudents.com/2016/09/road-ruin-economic-case-...

There are actually a lot of academic studies now into the Sydney 2000 Olympics economics. Quite interesting.

I haven't been there in about 10 years (I moved overseas), but one of the things that bugged me about Sydney Olympic Park was that it felt a bit like a barren business park.

Although slightly barren at the time, urban development has completely surrounded the main Olympic area in Sydney. There has been masses of housing developed across the whole area. The green spaces have been maintained and further developed over the years into some of the best parks in Sydney.

Most of the facilities are running events full time and many events that used to to be hosted further to the east of the city are now at Olympic park due to the ease of transport and centrality to the majority of the population.

Personally I think the Olympics are a complete joke and totally corrupted by bribes, commercialism and professional sport. They are long past their use by date and bound to take a hit when corruption becomes more unacceptable in more places, but, the facilities built for Sydney do not belong in an essay like this.

The main Olympic Stadium is now used full time by a local Premier League football team, West Ham. The Olympic pool is now a public swimming pool anyone can go in for £5. Not sure about the other venues, but the whole surrounding area is a new park which is very well used. All in all, a pretty successful legacy.

I'm sorry but this is a question of sustainability, not legacy. They're not even close.

I don't understand the difference in this context. The parent gave a few examples of how the Olympic venues in London have been repurposed for long-term use, so... Are you referring to financial sustainability? The sustainability of the Olympic model? What exactly?

I'm guessing it's a reference to the TV show Twenty Twelve, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYbA2Xsu6VE

He may be referring to the fact that the city rent out the Olympic stadium in London at a very low price to a club who can't fill it and which requires a lot of policing costs. West ham were given the lease do that the stadium wouldn't stand idle.

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.

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.

The 1984 LA games apparently turned a profit as well.

I remember using lots of the olympic facilities when my family lived in Calgary in the late 90s. The ski jump and bobsled are used for national team training and the public can ride them in a slower and safer manner for a fee.

I think winter olympics are much easier to run sustainably than summer games since there are far fewer sports, and the ones that do exist don't require nearly the same level of specialized venues. Bobsled and ski jump are pretty unique, but other than that everything needed for winter games is highly reusable. Most of the venues are not even that seasonal with the right planning.

Calgary is in an excellent position to host winter games. The venues that have been maintained and used for nearly 30 years and the city has excellent light rail transit to move between venues. Calgary is used to opening its doors to millions of visitors in a short time every year thanks to the Stampede, so the is a huge volunteer core and tons of hotel space. There have been calls for permanent olympic venues to help hold down costs; I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better option than Calgary for the winter games.

Calgarian here. The bobsled is still in use but the large ski jump is now just a zip line course. Ski jumpers improved to the point where they could "out jump" the hill. That would be likely the only large facility that would need to be completely rebuilt if we were to host again.

- The Oval still hosts world cup speed skating. - Canome still has a world class x-country ski facility - Lake Louise still hosts world cup downhill (although it was not used during the 88 games). - We have an NHL sized arena, although there is work to build a new one. - MacMahon stadium could still host an opening ceremonies - Bobsleigh still hosts world cup bobsleigh, skeleton and luge - Calgary Olympic Park holds world cup aerials, moguls, snowboarding half pipe etc

The biggest change from 88 is the size of the crowds. The city would likely need a few more hotel rooms to house athletes and visitors, but that's easy. Our new international terminal just opened so we could handle the increased capacity.

I have been to the athletics venue in Beijing. They have turned it into an ice playground with go-karts, a small ice-skating rink, and several other snow-related games. Inside the stadium itself they had photo's of the medalists and equipment with explanations. It cost a couple of dollars to enter and it was quite busy, so I guess they were able to cover maintenance cost from the entrance fees.

The Beijing Olympic swimming pool is now a water park!

A quarter of it is. The other pools are still being used for a variety of things, including as a big conference center (APEC was held there in 2015).

They're going to re-purpose the whole thing for the winter Olympics. I think it's supposed to become the curling venue.

Lake Placid, NY still uses the Olympic venues. A lot of winter athletes train there.

And, fun fact, the Olympic village is now a prison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Correctional_Instituti...

Another fun fact: those dorms were specifically designed for easy conversion into a prison. Apparently the athletes were not super thrilled.

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