August 30, 2004
Olympic elephants
The International Olympic Committee has said the just-completed 2004 Summer Games would leave no "white elephants" behind in Greece, but the sound of trumpeting is loud and clear around Athens. In building or rehabbing 35 competition venues and 72 training facilities for the Olympics, according to Reuters, Greece neglected to come up with post-Games uses for most of them: "Unfortunately, there isn't any plan," government spokesman Theodoris Roussopoulos recently admitted.
This is fairly common among recent Olympics, which have resulted in some well-used stadiums (the Atlanta Braves' Turner Field among them) and a whole lot of empty velodromes. Adding to Greece's woes: Work on many venues still hasn't been finished, and local mayors are saying they can't pay maintenance and security costs for the buildings while future uses are decided.
