Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

News

The Graphic Truth: Olympic champs of budget overruns

The Graphic Truth: Olympic champs of budget overruns
Paige Fusco
Make us preferred on Google

With a current budget of $3.9 billion, the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics will be relatively cheap by modern standards for the Games. The cost of Tokyo 2020 was almost twice the initial budget, and doesn't even count infrastructure spending. Indeed, cost overruns are a given for the Olympics, which since 1960 have always gone over budget — roughly by 173 percent on average. Given that national governments end up footing most of the bill, it's no surprise that in recent years fewer cities have competed to host the Games, and that Brisbane's 2032 bid was unopposed. We rank the last 16 Olympics by how much their final cost exceeded their initial budget.

More For You

The enduring legacy of 9/11, with former Defense Secretary Mark Esper
This week marks 25 years since 9/11—the deadliest terror attack the world has ever seen and a defining moment in American history. The attacks transformed US politics and national security. The war on terror became the organizing principle of American foreign policy. Former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper joins Ian Bremmer on the GZERO World [...]
25 years after 9/11, how much has changed?
- YouTube
Twenty-five years after 9/11, how much has actually changed? 9/11 is one of those rare moments that divides history into a “before” and an “after.” On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer looks back at the attacks that reshaped US foreign policy, launched the war on terror, and ushered in an era of military intervention, mass surveillance, and profound [...]
How 9/11 reshaped America and the world
- YouTube
September 11, 2001 was a day that forever changed America… and the world. It reordered domestic politics, reshaped how Americans thought about national security, and how the United States wielded its enormous power around the world. Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper joins Ian Bremmer on GZERO World on the 25th anniversary of 9/11 to reflect on [...]
All we’ve lost
Twenty-five years ago this morning, I rolled out of bed ready for a big day. My return to grad school at New York’s Columbia University was set to kick off that morning with a class called “War, Peace, and Strategy,” and my friend David and I had tickets to Yankee Stadium to see Roger Clemens pitch that evening.David called early to ask if he [...]