While we doubt a Chicago Olympics would have been as disastrous as Rio's, it still nice to know we probably dodged a bullet. Deadspin took a look at the Olympic venues just 5 months after they ended and it ain't pretty:
Even before the 2016 Olympics kicked off in August, the state of Rio de Janeiro had declared a “state of public calamity in financial administration.” Five months later, things aren’t any better.
The famed Maracanã stadium, which was given a $600 million retrofit to host the finals of the 2014 World Cup and the soccer gold medal matches at the Olympics, has fallen into a state of extreme disrepair. There is patchy grass, thousands of missing seats, and festering mold, among other problems, with the Rio 2016 organizing committee saying there are still some repairs it must do. But at least club football is still ongoing in the stadium—and it hosted a Chapecoense benefit match last month—so there is a chance things will be fixed.
That’s better than can be said about most other Olympic venues. Barra Olympic Park, the complex of nine venues (two of them temporary) that hosted a huge portion of the Games was supposed to be auctioned off. But when the auction only drew a single bidder—who couldn’t meet the stipulations—it was cancelled, and the venues turned over to the federal government. It is unclear how they will be used, and who will control them long-term.
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