Between 50 to 100 million euros annually has been spent on maintaining and securing the abandoned Olympic sites in Athens since the 2004 Games, according to recent reports. This public funding has been used for tasks like monitoring rusted fences and mowing the grass around dry swimming pools, despite the lack of major events justifying such expenses. Twenty-two years after the Games, most of the structures built at great expense have not been used by any athletes. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has pointed out that out of 124 Olympic sites worldwide that no longer serve any purpose, 36 are completely abandoned, with eight of them from the 2004 Athens Games. Only 30 percent of Olympic venues have found a new user after the event, a rate considered too low to suggest significant post-Olympic success. Two sites, Hellinikon and Faliro, are highlighted as symbols of Olympic waste. Hellinikon, built on land that was closed in 2001, contains several venues that hosted events for two weeks before falling into disuse, including a canoe-kayak course that has never been used. The Faliro beach volleyball center, which once held nearly 10,000 spectators, has been largely unused since the Games, with broken windows, graffiti, and debris. A tree has grown in front of the entrance, and homeless individuals have settled in the changing rooms. A stadium designed by architect Santiago Calatrava was closed in 2023 after its 18,000-ton steel roof failed safety tests. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis admitted the venue had not been maintained for two decades before its reopening in the following spring. However, not all parts of the Olympic complex have been abandoned. The Olympic Stadium remains the home of football clubs AEK and Panathinaikos and continues to host concerts. The neighboring multisport hall hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 2006. The financial cost of the 2004 Games is unclear, with the Greek Ministry of Finance citing 8.5 billion euros, while other analyses suggest estimates range from 6 to 27 billion euros. The ambiguity surrounding the budget has fueled debate on the role of the Games in the Greek debt crisis that followed. Former International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge admitted in 2011 that the Games affected the country's external debt, but only by 2 to 3 percent. Some sites have found new uses, such as the Markopoulo Shooting Centre, which is now used by the Hellenic Police as a training center. The Hellinikon site is now the subject of a private real estate project worth several billion euros aimed at transforming it into a residential, commercial, and leisure district. Private investors won a tender to develop the area into a residential, commercial, hotel, and leisure center, with a 7 billion-euro investment. Paris, preparing for the next Summer Olympics, has opted to adapt existing structures rather than build new arenas destined to remain empty, highlighting the city's storied history. It remains to be seen whether the concrete stadiums built for the next Olympics will escape the same fate of sports wastelands.