GREG BECKER: Small changes could bring big benefits for Olympic hosts

Hosting the summer Olympics has been a costly debacle for many cities: Montreal 1976 managed to pay off its Olympic debts in 2006. Since 1992, all summer and winter Olympics have had substantial cost overruns: 76% for London 2012 and a swingeing 352% for Rio 2016.

Despite this year’s Paris games selling itself as the “lean Olympics”, costs are more than double the initial budget. That said, steps were taken to make Paris 2024 more cost effective, and the costs per athlete and costs per event are on track to be a third of those of Rio 2016. Still, more could be done.

By thinking out of the box and holding the popular swimming events in a temporary (and shallower) pool in the Paris La Defense Arena — more commonly used for rugby matches — more fans have been able to enjoy the swimming events and a new and superfluous aquatic centre will not have to be maintained.

The next summer Olympics — Los Angeles 2028 — will hold the swimming event in the SoFi Stadium, which normally hosts American football matches. Athens 2004 proved that swimming events don’t have to take place indoors, and with Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer having shown that tennis matches can be held in the Cape Town Stadium, why not hold swimming events in existing stadiums and have room for even more cheering spectators?

Paris 2024 was fortunate to have Stade de France — an athletics stadium — so there was no need to build one. In Atlanta 1996 a baseball stadium was repurposed as a track and field venue, and Los Angeles 2028 will be building temporary stadiums to complement what the city already has.

Stadium 974, built for the Fifa World Cup in Qatar, showed how a temporary 44,000-seater stadium could be built out of shipping containers, and an even larger temporary stadium was built in Zug in 2019 for a Swiss wrestling festival. Money need not be spent on permanent stadiums that will be costly to maintain and rarely used. Purpose-built venues need not detract from the spectacle, prestige or viewership, or leave behind a white elephant.

Paris has shown that Olympic surfing events could be held at remote Teahupo’o (Tahiti) and sailing could take place in Marseille without damaging the spirit of the games — all athletes are still able to attend the closing ceremony if they wish.

If the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and host cities are less dogmatic about the locations of sporting events, no costly water parks need be built for events such as canoe slalom ever again.

Residents of Olympic cities — who pick up the tab — are not always rewarded with access to the events. Tickets to many events are expensive and scarce, but more could be done to ensure more events are available to sports-mad residents. Holding popular swimming events in a 50,000-seater stadium is one way.

The Paris 2024 opening ceremony on the Seine was essentially a procession, a carnival on the Seine, giving many thousands of residents access, as were the marathon, triathlon and road cycling events. With clever course design and scheduling, even more members of the public could be exposed to these events.

How about bringing back the 100km team trial to cycling, and adding the mixed individual time trial relay? Cross-country running — both as an individual and team event — and a road half-marathon and a 4x10km mixed road relay would create more opportunities for athletes to go for medals, and for residents to watch the world’s best compete.

The Games champion individual brilliance, but also national prowess. The introduction of various mixed events makes for exciting viewing, and more athletes are given a chance to shine. The success of the mixed relays — 400m on the track, 100m medley in the pool and triathlon — shows the potential. A mixed-mountain biking relay, mixed golf and mixed K2 canoeing events would reuse the facilities and many of the athletes who are already there, giving them another shot at a medal.

Artistic gymnastics gives athletes three shots at a medal: using apparatus, as an all round individual and in the team event. Athletes already participate in all athletics events as individuals, and the best all-round athletes compete for the decathlon and heptathlon medals. A team event — where track and field events are tackled by athletes from one nation — would create another day of exciting athletics.

The existing event line-up could be shaken up with costs in mind. Existing sports could adapt. What if the BMX event was replaced with a road criterium on city streets, and events such as marathon canoeing, which could be held in the sprint canoeing venue, replaced the slalom event, obviating the need for a facility?

Candidate cities should take advantage of temporary stadiums that don’t have leave maintenance costs. And they can realise the potential in repurposing facilities — student dorms will become the athletes’ village in Los Angeles 2028. And by having greater flexibility in the programme the largest venues could hold the medal events of as many sports as possible.

With more mixed-team events, athletes will have more chances to compete, and the fans will have more to enjoy. The cost per athlete, cost of holding each event and the cost of holding the entire spectacle could all be greatly reduced, while giving residents access to more free events, and more (and more affordable) tickets.

With Los Angeles already gearing up to host the 2028 Olympics (its third) and Brisbane having been confirmed for 2032 more than 11 years in advance, the IOC’s bargaining position is weakening. The 2036 candidate cities are from Asia and South America, so an argument can be made that 2040 should be Africa’s turn: “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)!”

Bearing in mind the huge cost overruns from the 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup, which pulled funds away from service delivery in SA — and that the construction cartel has been replaced by a construction mafia — maybe this is something for Cairo to consider.

• Becker, a retired actuary and recently qualified maths teacher, is founder of MyTutor.chat.