Athens Olympic venues go to rack and ruin while politicians point fingers

[richard]

Barbed wire, padlocked doors and scattered garbage are what Athenians see these days at their multi-billion euro sports venues built two years ago for the Olympics.

In what critics say is a checklist of how not to do things for future Olympic cities, especially London in 2012, Athens is still struggling to find use for the state-of-the-art venues it paid more than 3.5 billion euros to build.

Promising to showcase modern Greece, the Games went off without a hitch despite years of construction delays, but left a legacy of over-spending and venues in a state of abandon.

The wild water canoe and kayak facility was hailed as the world's best, as were the rowing centre and the weightlifting arena.

But two years after the Games that cost a record 12 billion euros, most venues remain fully or partly shut as the government desperately seeks private investors.

"We cannot keep them as Soviet-style sports venues alone.

"What would Greece do with the world's best canoe and kayak facility?" said Christos Hadjiemmanouil, the head of the company managing most Olympic venues.

Critics says that after wasting three years in preparations, organisers rushed to complete the projects ahead of the Olympics and spent no time planning their post-Games use.

As a result most venues will now go into private hands to start a cash-flow back to the state, angering sports federations who will never use them again and ordinary Greeks who say their tax money has been wasted.

"Why can't federations use the facilities?" a Greek athletics federation official asked. "It is absurd to have high-quality venues and turn them into cafes and conference centres."

The kayak race course will be turned into a commercial water fun park and the rowing centre will have limited use due to environmental restrictions.

The shooting centre, several soccer stadiums and the vast multi-sports Hellenikon site including the softball and baseball diamonds face much bigger problems of survival and some of them could even be demolished in a few years.

The conservative government, coming to power only five months before the Games after an 11-year socialist rule, has said it was forced to lease out the venues as its predecessors had failed to plan for after the Games.

"As of today I am very satisfied," Hadjiemmanouil, declared.

He said two venues had been leased out to private investors and another four would follow soon.

Socialist opposition politicians admit they were late in getting ready but accuse the ruling conservatives of not coming up with a post-Olympic plan.

"Today the venues remain tightly shut because they (the government) are afraid young people who may use them will 'pollute' them," said Kostas Kartalis, a former general-secretary in charge of Olympic preparations under the socialists.

"Opportunities are being lost and time is running against Athens as the capital's Olympic aura slowly fades," he added.


Source
reuters.com