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ΒΒC Reports on Greek Olympic Legacy Fading Away Amidst the Debt Crisis

The Greek Olympic team to compete at the upcoming London Olympics 2012 is going through all the harsh consequences brought on by the debt crisis that is plaguing the country for the fifth year in a row. The BBC featured an extensive report today on the lost glamour of the 2004 Olympic Games hosted in Athens and the numerous financial cuts that have led facilities into decay and athletes into lacking the basics.

Only eight years after the majestic Athens Olympics internationally promoted the Greek capital and the country in general, training facilities have been shut down and the different sports federations are trying to survive amidst the crisis.

The report compares the fate of the Olympic venues in Athens with the massive overspending of Greece after adopting the joint EU currency. “They’re seen as representative of the short-term vision that got Greece into its financial mess in the first place. The hoped-for privatisation of many of the sites has been thwarted by a mix of bureaucracy and mismanagement,” reads the BBC report.

Investors have not yet proposed to take over the facilities’ management or purchase them, which leaves many people wondering whether the Olympics spending were ever really needed. Others, however, like the president of the Hellenic Olympic Committee Spyros Capralos, still support the notion that hosting the Olympics was particularly beneficial to the country and other Olympic facilities of other host cities have fallen into decay over the years.

“After the Games, we had a new airport, new roads, and public transport. Athens 2004 is an easy target of blame, but instead we should blame all the people who created the government deficit over the years,” explined Capralos, according to the BBC.

The excessive funding of the 2004 Olympics in Athens is to date a controversial subject of conversation for most people in Greece. The country will be sending to London the smallest Olympic team in the past 20 years, but all participating athletes will be trying their best to excel despite the hardships.

 

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