Beneath the honor that comes with hosting the Olympics lies the heavy and overwhelming burden of financing it. The host countries often find themselves pouring billions of dollars into building top-notch sporting facilities for welcoming and accommodating the world’s best athletes, not to mention its global audience — and more often than not, these installations left to fall into disarray after the dust has settled.
These set of images depict the lost grandeur that was once the world’s biggest sporting stage. Whole stadiums, global villages, swimming pools, sprawling residential areas, and tourist areas are left to rot, slowly overtaken by weather, rust, and decomposition. While notable locations such as Sarajevo and Greece owe this to war and economic crisis, first-world countries like China and the US have simply left these once-impressive installations to abandonment.
The pictures below tell a poignant story of how what was once the seat of sporting glory. See the rest of the series here.
Bobsled facility, Sarajevo (REUTERS/Dado Ruvic)
Ski jump at Mt. Igman, Sarajevo (REUTERS/Dado Ruvic)Â 
Seats overrun with grass (REUTERS/Dado Ruvic)Â Â Â 
Olympic Rings, Sarajevo(REUTERS/Dado Ruvic)
Beijing’s cycling stadium parking lot is now used for driving exams (REUTERS/David Gray)
Abandoned kayaking venue, Beijing (REUTERS/David Gray)
Empty flag poles (REUTERS/David Gray)
Abandoned beach volleyball facility (REUTERS/David Gray)
Abandoned Athens stadium (REUTERS/Yorgos Karahalis)
Diving centers (Oli Scarff/Getty Images)