By Brenda Goh
LONDON Aug 13 (Reuters) – Future host cities of the world’s
biggest sporting events will look to emulate the London
Olympics’ use of temporary venues and stadia as the global
financial crisis heightens the danger of building expensive
white elephants.
Rio de Janeiro, which took the 2016 host baton from London
in a star-studded closing ceremony on Sunday, and 2022 World Cup
host Qatar are among cities taking notes from the UK capital,
which held the most ‘temporary’ Olympic Games in history.
“London is being used as a blueprint and we’re working with
a number of Olympic and World Cup bidding cities or host cities
to take a similar approach,” said Christopher Lee, director at
architecture firm Populous, which designed the London Olympic
stadium.
They include Rio, Sochi in Russia which is hosting the 2014
Winter Olympics, and Nanjing in China where the 2014 Youth
Olympics will be held.
While the Beijing, Athens and Sydney games relied heavily on
permanent sites, 257,000 out of 745,100 seats in London’s 34
Olympics venues will be dismantled after the Games leave town,
equal to the total number removed in the three previous games
combined, Populous data showed.
Of the 34 venues, only eight are permanent new-build
structures and will be scaled down, including the 80,000-seat
Olympic stadium which can be reduced to seat 25,000.
Seven venues, including the 12,000-seat basketball arena,
are temporary, while the rest already existed.
“The difference between London and others is that we’ve
taken amazing care with our legacy preparations,” London Mayor
Boris Johnson told reporters last Thursday. “We are unlike other
host cities at this stage, where six of the eight venues already
have their futures assured.”
Continued…
