Has hosting the Olympics become ruinous?

Not the IOC's business? Well, do not choose host cities that have to spend extraordinary amounts of money on infrastructure in order to hold the games. Use your heads. I love the Olympics but they have become a bit of a joke. You have to be rich in order to attend an event.

Important part of every nations identity sending competitors to the games specially winning golds but the nations that go into debt to host these games need to think long and hard before commiting to them, TAKE NOTE ISHIHARA.

Every major city really needs a billion dollar velodrome that gets used for a couple of weeks.

YES

Lots of already rich people get richer off the Olympics. Who cares about the Olympic Stadium after the games have finished? Athletics will go back to being hardly important again in London and some poor football team will be stuck playing in an athletics stadium. Tottenham, Leyton Orient or West Ham it seems. Will the Tube be much better afterwards? Hope the endless extra delays and closures leading up to it turn out to be worth it. I shan't be watching anyway. Nobody I know managed to get tickets to any events in their local area or in London and the price rise in everything and especially flights home leave a sour taste in the mouth.

Who cares about the Olympic Stadium after the games have finished?

Those stadiums continue to get used after the Olympics. In many cases, the local teams move in to take advantage of the newer facilities.

What about the security costs? Those have ballooned in recent years.

And the draconian advertising and sponsorship restrictions? Out of control nowadays. The legacy of Juan Samaranch - the real Lord of the Rings.

Too many of these sports events, not just the Olympics, are just another excuse for corporate excesses; politicians and celebrities riding on the backs of the efforts of athletes, media hacks vying for access to VIP boxes, and limousines to ferry the pampered rich and famous around between parties, press conferences and the occasional qualifying round.

If you look really closely, you night see some sport!

In the reality, Olympic is cash cow for TV Channels, celebreties, popular Athletes and IOC. It is also advertisment competition for co-operate sponsors. They can promote their brand to mass audience within two weeks. There are some benefits of infrastructure for public. However they have to foot the bills for long term debt. The return from infrastructure will take many years such as Airport and high ways.

Britain will regret about hosting that extravagant event in the future. Neighbouring nations are terribly broke for enjoying the atmosphere of that big game. After hosting the game, Greeks, Americans and Spanish are struggling with ever rising mountain of souverign debt. Most hosting nations did not enjoy the great expectation of economic benefit.

When Canada hosted the Monteral Olympic, they have to recover the huge cost of low return debt for many many years. Tokyo Olympic was healing the old wounds of war time memories.It was also reinvention of Japan image as host nation. Back in 1964, cost of hosting the game is pretty cheap comparing to right now. However more and more tourists flooded to Tokyo after the big game. It was a postive return.

It is unlikely that very high volume of Tourists will flood to London after the game. Current economic climate is not encouraging. People are reluntant to spend and travel because of financial insecurity.

I would love to see someone start an Amateur Olympic Committee. No professional athletes or anyone under the age of 16, no new infrastructure, nothing. Hold the games at a college, house the athletes in dormitories and feed them at the cafeteria. Then charge $10 million from anyone who wants to televise it, with NO exclusive rights.

With any luck, these games would return to the ideals set forth in 1896.

The Olympics are insanely expensive. The Athens Olympics were a direct cause of the mess that Greece is now in. When they count the costs, I'm sure they don't factor in the disruption to the ordinary economic life of the host city. A few self-interested people start lobbying for a games bid, and then the politicians get on board, and suddenly your taxes are going up, your streets are roadblocked, and your city becomes a locked down police state and a magnet for every terrorist looney in the world for the duration of the games

And anyway it's actually quite boring to watch people trying to shave a millionth of second off the world record for running half as fast as a horse. I'd love to see really cheap, amateurish Olympiad with only individuals, not national teams, competing.