Olympics waste of nation wealth

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'Olympic glories': Gipsies now live in a tent in front of the beach volley venue at the Faliron complex in Athens

Forlorn: This once proud pool is now dry

Derelict: Graffiti covers a stadium at the Faliron site

Abandoned: The walkway to the main Heliniko Olympic complex is choked with rubbish four years after it hosted the games

Abandoned, derelict, covered in graffiti and rubbish: What is left of Athens' £9billion Olympic 'glory'The security guards were furious.

Rushing out from under the shade of an olive tree - one of the few natural things remaining in an urban wasteland surrounded by steel fences topped with razor wire - the two uniformed guards made it clear that attempts to glimpse Helliniko, one of Greece's Olympic 'glories', were strictly forbidden.

'You are not allowed here!' one guard barked, as a car crammed with more security men, summoned by radio, screeched to a halt in front of me.

'These Olympics are closed. For ever!
Olympic site in Athens

'Olympic glories': Gipsies now live in a tent in front of the beach volley venue at the Faliron complex in Athens

'You must not stay here. Go! Now! It's illegal! 'Everything here is illegal!'

'Criminal' might be a better word.
Athens Olympic pool

Forlorn: This once proud pool is now dry

Four years after an outpouring of national delight, when the Olympic Games returned to their spiritual home in the shadow of the Acropolis, the security men were trying to hide evidence of the most scandalous abuse of public money in Olympic history.

After the guards had gone, I ducked through a gap in the venue's fence.

The reason for their agitation became painfully clear.

If waste was an Olympic sport, Greece should be world champions.

Inside, beneath rusting floodlights, lay devastation - formerly glorious Olympic stadiums were now derelict, covered in graffiti.

This is where more than £9 billion was spent to bring the 2004 Games 'home'.

I picked my way through the detritus - empty beer cans, food wrappers and other rubbish.

In 2004, the sound of thousands of cheering fans from around the world filled the huge space.

Now there's an eerie silence, broken only by the sound of tattered EU flags flapping in the wind.

It was not supposed to be like this. The benefits of the Athens Olympics were meant to last for generations.

The Olympic 'legacy' - the favourite buzzword of London's Olympic planners - was meant to be visible to all, transforming the chaotic Greek capital as if Apollo, the god of harmony and civilisation, had smiled on it.

That has not happened.
Athens Olympic stadium

Derelict: Graffiti covers a stadium at the Faliron site

A staggering 21 out of 22 venues lie abandoned since an event lasting just three weeks was held, and the magnificent stadiums are now over-run with rubbish and weeds.

But the most striking 'legacy' has been the huge sums spent - and wasted - on venues to hold sports with little following in Greece.

And yet the madness does not end there: annual 'maintenance' of the empty sites has cost almost £500million since the event.

Four years on, the Greek authorities unconvincingly insist they are still involved in 'active negotiations' to find buyers.

For planners of the London 2012 Olympics, it is a cautionary tale. The fear is that London may repeat the mistakes of Athens.

When the British capital was awarded the Games in 2005, we were promised they would regenerate the East End, one of the country's most economically-deprived areas.

But as the projected cost of the London Olympics spirals out of control, these vows are looking decidedly hollow.

Many experts now claim the only beneficiary of 2012 will be big business.

Meanwhile, they argue, the area's poorer communities, whose opinions have largely been ignored, will be trampled upon and left with little more than deserted, rubbish-strewn stadiums.

Unless urgent action is taken to return the focus to the people the Games are supposed to help long-term, London could be faced with its own Greek tragedy.


Back in Athens, the scene at Helliniko, on the outskirts, is all that remains of a clumsy desire to spur interest in obscure sports such as kayaking, handball and baseball among football-mad Greeks.

None took off - even when officials tried to generate interest by using the baseball stadium for football.

They soon discovered the triangular pitches of the American sport were not suited to a game played on rectangular grass fields.

After trying to encourage locals to use the facilities, the Athens authorities appear to have given up.

A once stunning bridge across the motorway to take thousands from the yachting complex to the baseball stadium, has been closed, the stairs piled high with waste concrete from nearby building sites.

Spiralling walkways, constructed to allow wheelchair users to travel between venues, are barricaded, their lights smashed.

Inside, plastic bags and bottles move through empty boulevards.

In parks designed to allow families to play, benches have been toppled and the paths are barred by guards.

Three miles north, in the Faliron complex - for the tae kwon do competitions (it's a martial art, in case you were wondering) and beach volleyball - gipsy squatter camps have sprung up.

Tents have been erected on grounds that, before the Olympics, were playing fields for children.

And rubbish is everywhere. Fountains are broken and rusting. Pools of water form from broken drains.

At the Olympic Village, six miles from the city centre - where 72,000 invited dignitaries, including Tony and Cherie Blair and former U.S. President George Bush Snr and his wife Barbara, watched the spectacular opening ceremony - the scale of the extravagance is also a sight to behold.

While concerts and football matches have been held here since 2004, the magnificent new stadium is in a sorry state.

Apart from a group of security guards, just a few athletes were training inside the pool.

Nothing else moved, except rubbish in the wind.

A 20,000-seat tennis stadium lies empty. So does the cycling stadium. And the Olympic diving area. And the hockey facilities. The list goes on.

These empty stadiums represent a nation so caught up in the desire to prove it was 'modern' that the true cost of such Olympian vanity was overlooked.

Indeed, many of these now decrepit facilities were completed just days before the opening ceremony.

It seems the thirst of Greek politicians for glory by association - backed by billions of pounds in European funding (your money and mine) - over-rode antiquated notions, such as whether this was value for money and how it would improve the lives of Greeks in the future.

Cash was spent with abandon, and the price is still being paid.

While the country's budget has plunged into the red by more than six per cent - some say the borrowing costs of the event have reached £35 billion - the Olympic legacy dominates political life in Athens.

'We didn't find a plan for the post-Olympics development of the venues,' says Fani Palli-Petralia, a New Democracy politician.

'When a city gets the Games, it should make a business plan for big changes and then decide what the country needs for the day after the Olympics. This did not happen.'

When Britain's 2012 bid was chosen - with London's bid beating Paris - commentators and politicians rightly applauded the fact that Britain would stage these ancient Games for the third time in the country's history.

It was a chance to show Britain at its best, building what politicians pledged would be a legacy lasting many years after the final race.

Amid predictions that London would be transformed, Tony Blair hailed the victory as a 'momentous' day for the capital.

Like Athens, London has been dogged by traffic gridlock for years.

There were claims the International Olympic Committee would demand improvements to the capital's public transport system, ending misery for millions, and encouraging tourists.

Yet, four years before the first starting pistol has been fired for London 2012, there are echoes of Athens.

While Athenians complain they were shunted from their homes to make way for Olympic developments in deprived areas - with soaring property prices and rising rents forcing others out after the events - similar complaints emanate throughout East London.

Indeed, experts predict London 2012 is doomed to fail.

'The Games have been presented by the Government and the Olympic delivery bodies as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help regenerate one of the UK's most economically disadvantaged areas,' says the New Economics Foundation.

But, the think-tank adds, it seems that big business will be the main beneficiaries, with little money trickling down to poor communities.

London 2012 may be going in the same direction as previous Games in its failure to live up to regeneration promises.

While much of the funding for the Athens Games came from Brussels, the London Olympics will be funded primarily by the British taxpayer, with a smaller proportion from private business.

Indeed, fears have recently been voiced that the £9.3billion budget has already spiralled to four times the original estimate.

Earlier this month, aware of the perils underscored by the Athens scandal - not to mention the Millennium Dome fiasco and the year-long delays in building a new Wembley football stadium - the organisers of the London Olympics changed the venue for some sporting events.

'Minority interest' sports such as fencing, table tennis and wheelchair basketball will now be played at the existing ExCel centre in London's Docklands, while sports such as handball will share space at the planned 12,000-seat basketball stadium.

In addition, an 80,000-seat stadium for the Olympics will be dismantled and reduced to a capacity of 25,000.

Lord Coe, the former Olympic athlete and chairman of London 2012, explained: 'We have always said that our intention was to build truly sustainable venues which will provide a strong elite and community legacy for sport for generations to come, long after the final race has been run in 2012.

'These small changes to our temporary venue locations. . . are designed to maximise the sporting legacy we leave behind, as well as to optimise the experience for athletes and spectators.

'We want to build only what can be used to maximum effect after the Games.'

Back in Athens not all has been lost.

As a sweetener for joining the EU, more than £20billion was pumped into creating the city's metro system.

Air conditioned and gloriously efficient, gridlock and pollution have been cut.

In London, by contrast, ' enhancements' to Tube lines - many given the green light, including the East London line extension - is all that is planned to coincide with the 2012 Games.

While there are also much-lauded ideas to introduce high-speed Olympic 'Javelin' trains, making journeys from St Pancras to East London in just six minutes, these will operate only for the three weeks of the Olympics, before chaos reigns again on the roads.

Only time will tell whether our own planners can avoid the lessons of Athens' Greek tragedy of empty stadiums we are all still paying for.

 

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Athens ruins ..............



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Even the mightly Beijing, with vast population cannot maintain interest in some of the sport

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The Big one. Canada Olympic in 1976, paid off in 2006. This is the reason corporate sponsors are introduced in Olympics.
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Quebec's Big Owe stadium debt is over


Montreal's Olympic Stadium needs a new nickname — the Big Owe no longer applies because Quebecers have finally paid off their $1.5-billion debt from the 1976 Summer Games.

Officials from the Olympic Installations Board, which oversees the stadium, have confirmed that the last payment was made in mid-November, three decades after the world descended on Montreal for the Games.


The astronomical cost included the stadium, the Olympic village, a post-modern apartment building complex, a sports recreation complex, outdoor facilities, parking and the Vélodrome, which has since been refurbished as the Biodome.

Much of the debt was serviced through a special tax on tobacco.

Officials had estimated the debt would be cleared by September 2006, but the smoking ban introduced in May slowed down tobacco sales in the province, according to the Canadian Press.



Quebec's chief accounting officer now needs to issue an official statement to formally clear the debt, said Jacques Delorme, a spokesman for the province's Finance Ministry.

"It's like if you bought a house: once you reach the deadline, you expect that your mortgage has been paid. But still, to be sure that your mortgage has really been paid, you have to wait for the bank to send you a final statement to say everything's OK. It's the same process here."

The longtime home of the Montreal Expos until the Major League Baseball team was sold to Washington, D.C., the 58,500-seat stadium was nicknamed the Big O, or, because of its cost, the Big Owe.

After clinching the 1976 Olympics, the mayor of Montreal at the time, Jean Drapeau, boasted the Games would be the first auto-financed Olympics.


"The Montreal Olympics can no more have a deficit, than a man can have a baby," he said, a prediction that would haunt him, as construction costs ballooned and sent the final price tag into the stratosphere.

The Olympic Stadium opened for baseball in 1977 without a roof, which was added about 10 years later. In 1991, a 55-tonne chunk of the roof fell after support beams snapped. No one was injured.

A second section of the roof collapsed in the winter of 1999 as workers were setting up for the auto show.

 

[AhGuan]

Heavy price to pay for national pride.

 

[Ash007]

You should see the stadium at Sydney. Everything still well maintained and regularly used. Some of the venue are also converted and still used for its intended sports.

 

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BANNED FROM THE GAMES
Balls, rackets, frisbees
Large flags and banners
Clothing with political statements or commercial signage
Oversized hats
Large golf-style umbrellas
Long-lens cameras and tripods
Excessive amounts of food
Noisemakers
Liquids greater than 100ml

Olympic crackdown: Among the many items banned at the Games, balls, long-lens cameras, clothing with political statements, noisemakers and bottled water are just a few on the list


The Big Brother Olympics: Bottled water, long-lens cameras and Che Guevara T-shirts all banned from stadiums in new crackdown

Oppressive rules that ban Olympic ticketholders from bringing a range of items from long-lens cameras to Che Guevara t-shirts and 'excessive food' to venues have been revealed by organisers.
The list of restricted items has caused surprise and angst among spectators who are only able to bring a small handful of items with them to the Games.There will be no frisbees, bottled water or long-lens cameras as organisers crackdown on spectators' possessions.


Security will be tight with airport-style restrictions on liquids greater than 100ml and no more than one soft-sided bag is allowed and must fit under the spectator’s seat.
The Beijing Olympics organising committee drew much criticism for its restricted list which covered everything from a ban on sleeping outdoors, the need for government permission to stage a protest and barring prostitutes and those with ‘mental diseases’ or contagious conditions.


Four years on and the London list is showing some similarities with tents, placards and other items that ‘could be used to demonstrate within the venue or sabotage property’ off-limits.
Organisers will be looking out for ‘any objects or clothing bearing political statements or overt commercial identification intended for “ambush marketing”’ to avoid scenarios like the 2010 football World Cup when Bavaria Beer filled a section of seats with a bevy of Dutch girls wearing orange.
They’ll be no picnics or eating too much food brought from home with ‘excessive amounts of food’ and alcohol on the no-go list.
Organisers figure that the more than 14 million meals to be served across 40 locations during the Games will suffice.
Spectators won’t be able to shelter from London’s unpredictable weather with no ‘large golf-style umbrellas’ or ‘oversized hats’.

They’ll be no chance to make a racquet or cheer too loudly with ‘noisemakers such as hunting horns, air horns, klaxons, drums, vuvuzelas and whistles’ off limits.
Ticketholders went to Twitter to express their surprise at the long list of restrictions.
One said: ‘Coming to the 2012Olympics? No frisbees or picnic hampers. It's gonna rain and Heathrow sucks.’
Another called it ‘the Dystopian Games’.

 

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Armed and ready: For the first time since WWII, London's green space is transformed by anti-aircraft guns for Olympic ring of steel
Rapier and high-velocity missile systems are being installed in Leytonstone, Bow, Blackheath Common and Oxleas Wood, Enfield and Epping Forest
It is the biggest peacetime security operation the country has ever seen

It is a sight which many older generations thought they would never see in this country again.
Soldiers in residential tower blocks and green open spaces were yesterday pictured installing surface-to-air missiles at six sites across the capital, a show of strength not seen in this country since the Second World War.
With two weeks to go before the start of the London 2012 Olympic Games, it marks a dramatic development in the biggest peacetime security operation the country has ever seen.





Yesterday, the military began installing Rapier and high-velocity missile systems at the six sites in Leytonstone, Bow, Blackheath Common and Oxleas Wood, both in South East London, Enfield and Epping Forest.
The most controversial of these is at the residential block Fred Wigg Tower in Leytonstone, east London.
Swarming like ants across the rooftop, members of the Royal Artillery were pictured setting up the weapons.
Troops carried truckloads of equipment up the 17-storey block ready to assemble it to protect the Olympic Games from terrorist attack.
The Starstreak high-velocity missile systems, whose laser-guided weapons have a range of 3.4 miles, are so powerful they can bring down an aircraft.
Residents this week lost their bid to force a judicial review into the decision to deploy the air defences above their heads.

The tenants fear the move could make them a terrorist target but security chiefs say there is 'no credible threat' and the siting of the missiles is 'proportionate'.
Another Starstreak system was also placed at the Lexington Building, a gated community in Bow, East London.
Cover is also being provided by Rapier towed missile systems, which have a range of 7.5 miles, at Blackheath Common and Oxleas Wood, both in South East London, a reservoir in Enfield and a farm in Epping Forest.

The Defence Secretary has described the ground-based air defence systems as 'just one part of a comprehensive, multi-layered air security plan' which would provide 'both reassurance and a powerful deterrent' during the Games.
The security plan includes a helicopter carrier, HMS Ocean, being moored in the River Thames, with RAF Typhoon jets stationed ready at RAF Northolt and Puma helicopters at a Territorial Army centre in Ilford.
David Cameron will have the grim task of ordering the Armed Forces to use the missile defence systems to shoot down a passenger airliner over Britain if a suicide attack is suspected of being underway.


MPs WARNED OF TRIPLE THREAT
MI5 and MI6 have been put under ‘unprecedented pressure’ by the Olympics, leaving Britain vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
The annual report of Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee warned that ‘risks’ have been taken with security to concentrate on protecting the Games.
Intelligence chiefs told the committee that spies have identified three potential sources of terrorist threat to the Games.
Al Qaeda and its affiliates could launch a conventional terrorist attack which might target American or Israeli nationals.
Irish republican groups are judged to be capable of a smaller attack or a hoax aimed at causing disruption rather than mass casualties.
There could also be clashes between rival groups or minorities present in London during the Games who would not normally be considered a security threat to the UK.


‘It is clear that coverage of terrorist groups is by no means comprehensive.
The Prime Minister will be ultimately responsible for a decision to fire missiles to blast a suicide jet, possibly carrying terrified innocent civilians, out of the skies.
Colonel Jon Campbell, commander of the Joint Ground Based Air Defence, has previously said: 'We have done as much as we can to allay people’s fears.
'The Rapier system has a world-class radar on it and is particularly good at picking up low and slow-moving objects in the sky.
'It means we’re able to get the very best picture of what is happening in the skies of London.'
Air Vice Marshall Stuart Atha also said previously: 'We want the focus to be on Usain Bolt this summer and not us. We’re very proud to be part of this plan to deliver a safe and secure Olympics.'
A campaign to stop the Ministry of Defence deploying surface to air missiles on top of homes as part of Olympic security was taken to Parliament yesterday.
Labour's John Cryer tabled an early day motion in the House of Commons urging MPs to signal their opposition to the plans.
The Leyton and Wanstead MP said residents in his constituency feared the result of deploying the weapons, which could be used to shoot down aircraft threatening the London 2012 Olympics over east London.
A legal bid by the residents of the Fred Wigg tower, in Leytonstone, was dropped after the High Court rejected the challenge yesterday.
Mr Cryer's motion said: 'This House recognises the need to provide reasonable security for the Olympic Games but is concerned at the unprecedented decision of the Ministry of Defence, in peacetime and where no emergency has arisen, to station troops, armed police and ground-based air defence missile systems on top of Fred Wigg Tower.
'(It is) a civilian residential block of flats, in Leyton, and without any consultation with the residents affected and without bringing the matter before Commons.
'(This is) despite the fact that seven years have passed since this country was awarded the Olympic Games.
'It calls on the Ministry of Defence to examine urgently the possibility of building a temporary tower for the missile systems instead of siting such weapons and launch pads over the heads of the ordinary men, women and children who have had no say in the decision.


'Or, alternatively, to provide proper security to protect the residents living in Fred Wigg Tower from potential terrorist attack and to provide financial assistance to concerned and worried residents who wish to move for the duration of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.'
Early day motions are tabled by MPs seeking to gather support for an issue or cause.
Other MPs can sign them to signal support but they are not debated in the Commons. One MP, Labour's John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) has so far signed Mr Cryer's motion since it was posted yesterday.
Home Secretary Theresa May has already faced accusations that Olympics security is a shambles after the Armed Forces were called in to plug a gap left by the failure of bungling G4S chiefs.


With just two weeks to go until the opening ceremony, an extra 3,500 servicemen and women are being flown in after the firm, which has a history of mistakes, said it might not be able to provide enough guards for all the venues.
MPs accused the company of letting the country down, while Mrs May insisted ministers were told of the ‘absolute gap in the numbers’ only on Wednesday. In other developments in a growing pre-Games meltdown yesterday:
At Heathrow, passengers arriving for the Olympics faced two-hour queues at immigration and millions face travel chaos because the M4, which links Heathrow to London, remains closed for repairs for the ‘foreseeable’ future;
A G4S whistleblower claimed fake explosive devices and lethal weapons were smuggled past security trainees during Olympics test events;
It emerged that the extra servicemen now called in to carry out security duties during London 2012 will be forced to camp in disused buildings;
A parliamentary report said MI5 and MI6 have been put under ‘unprecedented pressure’ by the Olympics, leaving the country vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

 

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The amphibious assault ship is being positioned in Greenwich to provide extra security for the London Olympics

Ready and waiting: The Typhoon jets line up on the tarmac at RAF Northolt, west London, ahead of a nine-day military exercise to test security for the Olympic Games

A man walks past a Rapier short range air defence system at Blackheath, London, ahead of the exercises