While Feather Stadium is returning to the international scene in time for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, the post-match story of Olympic Stadium has varied from being demolished, achieving fame, and then being left utterly desolated for the past 60 years.
Olympic stadiums tend to fall into disrepair after the games they were meant to host are over. Stadiums are costly to build and maintain, and the cost of their maintenance often exceeds any revenue the city might generate from hosting the stadium, so many Olympic stadiums are left to slowly decay.
Brand-new for its purpose of hosting 40,000 fans at the 2014 Winter Olympics, Fisht Stadium is set to be transformed in the next four years to become one of Russia’s venues for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. With 100,000 fans attending the 2014 Winter Olympics, the proper venue opened four years before the games.
Now called Luzhniki Stadium – and sporting a new roof after the 2014 Winter Olympics – Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena does not do much except host a few Russian domestic soccer matches. However, it will find a new lease on life as the host site of the 2018 World Cup. Only one stadium, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, had been a significant stadium at two summers Olympic Games (and only one will become a major stadium for a third time, for the 2028 games).
On Beijing’s Olympic Stadium
The Beijing National Stadium will again be used when the Chinese capital hosts the 2022 Winter Olympics, making it the first stadium in the world to have hosted both the Summer and Winter Games. Beijing’s National Stadium cost the Chinese capital a fortune when it was built to house the Opening and Closing ceremonies for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games.
Beijing’s National Stadium hosted track-and-field events during the 1964 Olympics, then was used on occasion throughout the years to stage football matches and other significant events, while Tokyo’s National Olympic Stadium had largely fallen into disrepair by the end of the decade.
A decade after the Olympic Games, Herndon Stadium was the shooting location for the Hollywood movie We Are Marshall. It later became yet another abandoned Olympic site and the stuff of graffiti artists. The Olympic Village, which hosted thousands of international athletes throughout the games, was virtually left after the Closing Ceremony, sitting empty for three years.
Stadiums Through the Years
At the time of the 1984 Games, Sarajevo was a part of Yugoslavia but was torn by War during the 1990s. Many expensive venues were mostly abandoned, despite the promise from the organizers that the 1984 Sarajevo Olympic Games would have provided legacy benefits to Brazilian citizens.
The 2016 Olympic bid was costly, and several venues and buildings were intentionally built for athletes’ housing and media. Reusing venues significantly reduced the number of constructions required for the 2022 Winter Olympics, according to the Beijing 2022 local organizing committee, Department of Venue Planning and Construction.
In the run-up to Rios Summer 2016 Olympic Games, the city’s organizers made plans to use its numerous venues after the games. Several media were used for more than one Olympic game in cities hosting more than one. As part of legacy projects at many Olympic games, most platforms are retained to benefit local communities or are repurposed for other uses, such as hosting soccer clubs.
Of the 42 venues in Japan’s capital, several are expected to be used as sports venues for significant sporting events. In contrast, a few others could be utilized for concerts expected to attract large crowds, for example, live music performances.
Notes on the Nest Stadium
Beijing’s 91,000-seabirds Nest Stadium, built for the 1992 Summer Olympics, is mostly not used, costing $11m per year in maintenance. The 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing began this week, and several of the same stadiums — including a national stadium known as the Birds Nest — are being used as they were built for the 2008 Summer Games.
The basketball arena built for the 2008 Summer Olympics has been upgraded and converted into an ice hockey arena. Sochi central stadium, which hosted games in 2004, is seen from a derelict home window on Feb. 18, 2013, in Sochi.
The giant infrastructure built for the Beijing Games, the bird’s nest, and the national aquatic center, aka water cube, are now used for cultural and sporting events, reminiscent of the world of the pyres blazing in the summer of 2008.
Built in 1984 to serve as an Olympic site for the Summer Olympics in 2008, venues like Mount Igman, an Olympic ski jumping site near Sarajevo, and Trebevic Bobsled and luge tracks were severely damaged in the Bosnian War of the early 1990s and were never rebuilt. Due to Greece’s economic weakness following the 2004 games, no further investment was made, and most of the built stadiums are now abandoned.
On the Tokyo Stadium
The other, National Stadium in Tokyo, was the main stadium that hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics (the first ever held in Asia) and was chosen to serve as the main stadium for the 2020 games, with plans for the redevelopment of the new one. Built for the 1991 Mediterranean Games, this outdoor swimming facility was also used in the 2004 Summer Olympics held in Athens. Fisht Stadium, already the home of the Shinano Grandserows baseball team, took a hiatus during the 2014 Winter Olympics, then returned to hosting baseball.
For the Tokyo Olympic Games, Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium was rebuilt into an all-new stadium designed by the highly-regarded architect Kengo Kuma, which hosted both opening and closing ceremonies. The 2012 London games were not opened and closed in a redeveloped Wembley stadium, which was the location of the 1948 Olympic stadium, but in a new stadium at Stratford. Used for hosting public events, the $75m venue now serves as a public park and memorial for the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympic Games.