Abandoned Olympic Venues From Around The World Or Why It's The Biggest Waste Of Money Ever

The bobsleigh and luge track at Mount Trebevic, the Mount Igman ski-jumping course and related infrastructure are crumbling more and more with each passing year. But adrenaline, fear and exhilaration are back on the bobsleigh track as downhill bikers Kemal Mulic, Tarik Hadzic and Kamer Kolar train on the graffiti-covered concrete.

Interesting fact about these ski jumping towers is that the Swiss jumper, Andreas Dascher introduced a new style of jumping, which would soon come to be known as the Dascher technique. Before these Games, the athletes would hold their arms forward over their heads. Dascher reasoned that if the athlete held his arms at his side he would fly farther. Adherents to this new style dominated the competition.

The disused bobsled track from the Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olympics is seen on Mount Trebevic, near Sarajevo, September 19, 2013. Abandoned and left to crumble into oblivion, most of the 1984 Winter Olympic venues in Bosnia’s capital Sarajevo have been reduced to rubble by neglect as much as the 1990s conflict that tore apart the former Yugoslavia.

An abandoned training pool for athletes at the Olympic Village.

View of the swimming pool in the 1936 Olympic village in Elstal, west of Berlin. The village, which housed over 4.000 athletes for the notorious 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, then under Nazi rule, was used as barracks for the German army shortly afterwards, and from 1945 as barracks for Russian officers, until the Russian army's final withdrawal in 1992.

48 of abandonment and a beautiful view

A graveyard has been established in what was once part of the Olympic Sports Complex in Sarajevo for the 1984 Winter Olympics.

View at the Helliniko Olympic complex in 2014.

Nini, left, and Yingying, two of the five mascots for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, are seen lying among trees behind an abandoned, never-completed mall in Beijing. The fallen mascots are a reminder of the high costs of hosting the event. Their derelict state reflects the challenges that China has faced in finding new uses for its Olympic investments, with many venues falling into disrepair and some construction projects left incomplete.

The 2008 Beijing Olympics venue for the competition lies deserted and unmaintained in central Beijing, April 2, 2012.

Seats for reporters remain desolate in 2014.

Deserted houses for the athletes in the former Olympic Village for the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.

Old Soviet venue built for the Moscow Olympics in the 1980. Located in Tallinn, Estonia.

A view of the disused ski jump from the Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olympics on Mount Igman, near Sarajevo, Sept. 19, 2013. Abandoned and left to crumble into oblivion, most of the in Bosnia's capital Sarajevo have been reduced to rubble by neglect.

The first permanent Olympic village. The athletes were impressed - each house had its own steward and there had never been a swimming pool before at an Olympic village.

General view of the Beach Volleyball Olympic Stadium at Faliro Olympic Complex in Athens, Greece on July 31, 2014. Ten years ago the XXVIII Olympiad was held in Athens from the 13th - 29th August with the motto 'Welcome Home'. The cost of hosting the games was estimated to be approx 9 billion euros with the majority of sporting venues built specifically for the games. Due to Greece's economic frailties post Olympic Games there has been no further investment and the majority of the newly constructed stadiums now lie abandoned.

The remains of a fountain decorated with the Olympic rings and graffiti-defaced marble blocks dedicated to Greek Olympic medal winners are seen here decapitating in 2012.