The Athens Olympics Aftermath: Lessons Learned

[Fiona]

The spiralling cost of the Athens Olympics was defended after the Greek budget for 2005 was announced revealing the cost of the games rising to $14.6 billion.

Over a year since the ‘greatest show on earth’, the latest estimate is $3 billion more that the last Olympic budget announcement, making Athens 2004 the most expensive in history, the previous now defeated Socialist government originally placed the cost at $5.9 billion.

Spyros Doukakis, General Secretary for Olympic Utilization, said: “There are many reasons why the Athens games was the most expensive, it was the first games since the September 11th attacks and the terrorist attack in Madrid so that obviously increased the cost of security.”

“They were the first games to be held under the legislation of the European Union for public supplies and services which created a legal labyrinth, this delayed work and put us under pressure for construction in the last three years resulting in higher costs, this was also the first games since Moscow in 1980 that was entirely publicly funded.”

The current cost of the upkeep of the stadiums since last year has reached 85 million Euros which has caused consternation and criticism from local politicians and residents although there has been no effective mobilised voice of opposition.

Recently a parliament bill was passed which will allow changes into how the Olympic venues are currently used, the Olympic stadium will be used by two local football clubs and the private sector has been invited to tender on a long term basis for three of the venues.

The private sector have been mostly interested in using the Hellinikon complex which cost $330 million and has six stadiums on its site, plans are to use the facilities for a conference centre and for academic buildings.

Lessons for the future will be plenty for the next two holders of the games Beijing in 2008 and now London in 2012.

Mr Doukakis outlined what they should be, he said: “China having a more centralised economy will be able to overcome the procedural difficulties that we had, with recent events London is likely to have unavoidable problems with terrorism.”

He explained: “They should learn from our past mistakes and have a post-utilization Olympic plan that will invite mixed public and private schemes, these tenders should be organised well before the beginning of the event.”

Further criticism has also come from the fact that there has been little or no fresh sports initiatives since the games last year continuing the psychologically uplifting nature of Olympic competition.

Greeks are still searching for more than the positive image that the games gave them and the satisfaction of holding a successful event that at one time some gave them little chance of doing.


By: Perer TABERNER in London
Seeurope.net correspondent