Rio looks to London's "temporary" Games to avoid white elephant Olympic legacy
Rio 2016: host city for the 2016 Olympics Rio de Janeiro will be taking notes from the London 2012 Olympics – the most 'temporary' Games in history – to avoid the legacy of 'white elephant' sporting venues suffered by other former host cities including Athens and Beijing, reports Reuters.
Rio intends to build only nine permanent sites and six temporary venues, according to bid proposals sent to the International Olympic Committee, and is also considering having London's Olympic basketball arena shipped to Brazil.
"London is being used as a blueprint and we're working with a number of Olympic and World Cup bidding cities or host cities to take a similar approach," said Christopher Lee, director at architecture firm Populous, which designed the London Olympic stadium.
Of London's 34 Olympic venues, just eight are permanent new-build structures, and these will all be scaled down to seat smaller crowds at future events. Seven venues, including the 12,000-seat basketball arena, are temporary, while the rest already existed.
Other London Olympic venues could also be on their way to Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games in 2014, while over 4,000 tonnes of sand from the beach volleyball arena in Horse Guards Parade is to be given to six London community sports centres.
A report was recently published on the difficulties facing democratic nations when hosting the Olympics. Read our interview with the authors here.
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