Like many host cities before it, Rio de Janiero is trying to adjust to life after the Olympic games. Billions of dollars are poured into the construction of world-class facilities to host the Olympics. However, after the games end, finding a purpose for those facilities can be a challenge.
Rio’s Olympic facilities are deserted and crumbling only 6 months after the games
It’s depressing, but predictable.
The Olympic stages in Rio are much different from before the world left them six months ago. The area which once stood the center of attention across the globe is now barren, torn up, picked apart, empty, and sad looking.
Areas were looted and plucked apart. Chairs were stolen and thrown in heaps at Maracanã Stadium, which hosted the men’s and women’s soccer tournaments.
Nobody walks through the one-time highly coveted areas anymore. The place is completely deserted, having lived through its one-month life span.
The Olympic Village is no more, fenced in without purpose.
As Rodger Sherman explained Brazil’s economic state best before he left to cover the Olympic events:
The reason things are broken everywhere is because Brazil did not have the money to spend billions of dollars on constructing things, leading to rushed, shoddily done buildings.
They spent billions on a velodrome and a canoe slalom course and an Olympic stadium and a field hockey stadium and expanding the airport. Meanwhile, they can’t afford to pay police and firefighters or get the poop out of the water.
Brazil’s economy has tanked in the last five years, to the point it couldn’t afford to pay its regular bills. Hosting the Olympics was like buying a yacht when Brazil couldn’t make its car payments.
I’m not worried about how everything in Brazil seems to be broken. But the Olympics will guarantee that things in Brazil stay broken for some time, and the country’s people will have to live with that long after I leave my uncomfortable hotel room.
The entire venue has been abandoned, and it appears Rodger’s fears have come to fruition.
