Olympics bankrupt Bashny.Net

On the first day of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, we decided to do a little review of the Games ending on financial disaster for the host countries and cities. We sincerely hope that the wonderful sports festival, first held in Russia, will be able to escape their sad fate.

9 photo.





Olympic Games - not only sporting event, during which the best athletes of the world compete with each other in various sports, is also an opportunity for the country and the city, taking the Olympics to show itself in this glory and attract a huge number of guests.
It is not surprising that through proper marketing and advertising of the modern game is often not only pay for themselves, but also bring considerable profit to the organizers, and the flow of tourists, and does not cease after the closing ceremony.
However, the Olympic city is still going on at the same time a considerable financial risk. It also happens that the hopes for tourism boom are not met. In this case, the host country is on the beans, and for many years could not recover from losing money.

We present a selection of the Olympics, which ended in financial disaster for the organizers, from the first modern Games.



1896 Summer Olympics in Athens

In April 1896 we took the first Athens Olympic Games in the past 15 centuries of our era. And probably many grand event organizers bitterly regretted it. Greece at the time and so was practically on the verge of bankruptcy, but King George I thought that the biggest sporting event in the world will raise the country's prestige.
Organizers of the first Olympic Games, as later and practically all their imitators, from the outset large miscalculated in assessing costs of the sports festival.
The initial estimate of 585,000 drachmas was exceeded by almost seven times, reaching the then astronomical sum of 3,740,000 drachmas (about 448 000 dollars at the time. Most of the amount was spent on the restoration of the ancient Athenian stadium.

Fortunately, thanks to million donation of a wealthy businessman, Olympics barely managed to save from bankruptcy before it began. And the additional profit from the sale of souvenirs and commemorative medals, in the end, the shortfall.



1976, Summer Olympics in Montreal

Montreal Games went down in history as one of the failures in terms of the loss of the city budget. Many of the city, while wishing to apply to host the Olympics, after learning about the financial disaster of Montreal, in a fright withdrew their candidacy.
Modest funding from the state budget - 120 million Canadian dollars (110 million US dollars) - has failed to cover even part of a huge amount of 922 million, which has managed the construction of facilities: the Olympic Village, a new large stadium, velodrome luxury ...
Even specially introduced to support the Games tobacco tax is not able to help prevent the three billionth costs that are three decades Auca Montreal.

Everything else, the Montreal Olympics put yet another sad record - it's the only game in which the host country has not won any gold medal.



1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano

10, 5 billion dollars spent relatively small Japanese city of Nagano (379,000 inhabitants) in preparation for the 1998 Olympics.
The principal amount went to the commissioning of the bullet train takes passengers from Tokyo in just a half hour - less than half the time of a trip on a conventional train.
However, the organizers of the Games have not considered that many Olympic visitors, given the speed of the delivery, would prefer to stay in the capital Tokyo, rather than unremarkable Nagano.
As a result, the organizing committee was forced to abandon the 4000 stay in city hotels due to lack of demand. Moreover, the nearby ski resorts was marked by a sharp decline in the level of conventional tourism - sports fans prefer to avoid the influx of Olympic noisy crowds.

How many lost on the Japanese city of the Winter Olympics, it is hard to say, but in any case the expected tourist boom during and after the Games have not followed.



2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney

Many Australians were hoping that after 2000 the influx of tourists to Australia will increase several times. 3, 8 billion dollars spent on the Sydney Olympics organizing, third of the cost went from the pockets of taxpayers.
However, because of the expected 132,000 visitors to Sydney we got only 97 000. And, as in the case of the Nagano Olympics deterred many traditional fans of Australia, who chose to spend their holiday in a less noisy place.

Expected year after the Games 8-10 million visitors sidneytsev deceived expectations. Only 2, 5 million tourists prefer to relax on the green continent, much less than expected antipodes.



2004 Summer Olympics in Athens

The experience of a hundred years ago so not learned Greeks - in 2004 for the second time Athens hosted the Games, revived to life by Pierre de Coubertin.
Again, the initial budget for the Olympic Games 4, $ 6 billion was exceeded many times over. The US $ 15 billion cost of the Greek capital, new sports facilities, such as the Olympic Beach Volleyball Centre and the Olympic tennis center.
After the Olympics many facilities, including tennis courts, never used. Most of the cost was covered by the Greek Olympic Games of the budget, which this financial shock since not fully recovered.

Some analysts believe that the roots of a terrible crisis that befell Greece in 2009, to be found in "flops" Games in 2004.



2006 Winter Olympics in Turin

The Organizing Committee of the Games of Turin was forced to constantly dodge any means to avoid multimillion-dollar deficit in the budget of the Olympic Games, which is threatening the bankruptcy of Turin. We had to cancel the planned parties, reduce travel costs and advertising.

In the end, the organizing committee refused the rights to host the Paralympic Games for $ 40 million by transferring it to a private company. The last hope of the Italians was hastily organized Olympic lottery, but even she was unable to help the Turin break even. In the city budget hole appeared in 49 million dollars, which is not covered even selling some of the Olympic venues.



2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver

For Canada, the Olympics in 2010 turned into a real triumph: 14 gold medals won the Canadian athletes at home, beating, including on hockey championship.

However, Vancouver sports festival became a uniform catastrophe 1 billion debit, including 730 million dollars in losses incurred during the construction of the Olympic Village.

To get out of debt, the Canadian city is trying since then to sell the house built for the Games and facilities. However, the prospects do away with the sad legacy of the Olympic Games still look disappointing.



Source: