Featured image credit: Getty
Each time the Games comes around, the legacy talk beginnings as the host nation discusses how the biggest sporting event in the world will shot put sports back into the mainstream.
All too quickly since the competition begins, the Games are over, the medals have been handed out and the eyes of the world revert back to the their own countries. Meanwhile, the Olympic venues stand empty.
Remember Athens in 2004 when the city welcomed tens of thousands of spectators? Well, we doubt you will recognise the photographs that have recently emerged.
Athens Olympic swimming venue. Image credit: Getty
Athens 2004 diving pool unused, like many of the venues around the city. Image credit: Getty
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The Softball pitch that was the venue at the Athens 2004 Olympics. Image credit: Getty
Filthy water sits in the unused swimming venue, while the luscious green grass that was laid for the softball tournament is now nothing but a wasteland.
Go back a few more years and the once Olympic venues are barely recognisable.
Images from the Berlin 1936 Olympic Village, which housed more than 3,000 athletes, now looks like a slum.
The Berlin 1936 Olympic Village. Image credit: Getty
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The Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olympics welcomed 49 countries to compete in 39 events. Now, the ski-jump looks abandoned, unstable and unsafe.
Winter Olympics 1984 ski jumping venue. Getty
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London's 2012 Olympic Stadium was sold off to West Ham United (so that'll be a wasteland soon too, no doubt), while the aquatic centre was opened to the public and is still used today for international competitions, while the Athletes' Village blocks were sold off as apartments.
London 2012s Olympic venue was sold to West Ham after the Games. Image credit: Getty
With Rio's worst economic crisis in a decade, it will be interesting to see whether they utilise the venues around the city once the Games finish, that's if the thieves don't get there first...
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Words: Hamish Kilburn