导读:罗马因担心成本问题撤回申办2024年夏季奥运会申请。
Cities used to covet the Olympic Games. Hosting them meant glamour and prestige.
以前各大城市都渴望举办奥运会。举办奥运会意味着魅力与荣耀。
Not anymore.
而如今没有城市愿举办奥运会。
Rome became the latest city to abandon a bid for the 2024 Summer Games when it withdrew on Tuesday because of worries over the cost.
罗马因担心成本问题于周二撤回申办2024年夏季奥运会的申请，成为最新放弃申办奥运会的城市。
Budget concerns have led city after city to drop their Olympic dreams in recent years. Stockholm and Krakow, Poland, pulled the plug on bids for the 2022 Winter Olympics, which were later awarded to Beijing.
出于预算考虑，近年来一座座城市放弃了奥运梦。瑞典斯德哥尔摩和波兰克拉科夫放弃申办2022年冬季奥运会，之后北京赢得申办权。
An Olympic host city has to plan, pay for and construct massive infrastructure projects. Security costs can run into the billions of dollars. Thousands of hotel rooms must be built to house athletes and tourists.
奥运会主办城市必须计划、支付、构建大型基础设施项目。安全成本达数十亿美元。还必须建造成千上万的宾馆酒店来接待运动员及游客。
Most of it happens on the taxpayer dime -- with little discernible economic benefit.
大多数都依赖于纳税人的钱，而几乎没有任何明显的经济效益。
Elected leaders have argued that ticket sales, construction jobs and increased tourism outweigh the costs. But economists say the real return on hosting the Olympics is not so rosy.
民选领导人认为门票销售、建设工作、促进旅游业发展比成本问题更为重要。但是经济学家却认为举办奥运会真实的回报并非如此乐观。
Montreal, host city of the 1976 Summer Games, provides perhaps the best example of the long-term cost.
举办1976年夏季奥运会的蒙特利尔可能就是成本长期无法弥补的最好范例。
Before the games, the mayor declared: "The Olympics can no more lose money than a man can have a baby." He was wrong. Mismanagement and gross cost overruns left the city with $1.5 billion of debt that wasn’t paid off until 2006.
举办奥运会之前，该市市长宣称：“举办奥运会的亏损不会超过抚养孩子的成本。”他大错特错。管理不善、总成本超支造成该市产生15亿美元的债务，直到2006年才还清。
The Olympic stadium was turned into a ballpark and now sits largely idle.
奥运会体育场之后成为球场，现在基本闲置。
While Montreal is an extreme case, researchers at Oxford’s Sa?d Business School have found that spiraling costs are the norm.
即便蒙特利尔是一个极端的例子，牛津大学赛德商学院的研究员发现急剧上涨的成本已成为常态。
"The games overrun with 100% consistency. No other type of mega project is this consistent regarding cost overrun," they wrote in an academic paper in 2013. "Other project types are typically on budget from time to time, but not the Olympics."
“举办奥运会成本超支具有百分百的一致性。在成本超支方面其他类型的大型项目尚未如此一致，”研究人员在2013年的学术论文中写到。“其他项目类型通常是时时进行预算，而奥运会并非如此。”
The Montreal experience went a long way toward scaring off potential host cities for 1984.
蒙特利尔的经历在很大程度上吓跑了1984年奥运会的潜在申办城市。
only one, Los Angeles, made a bid, and consequently was able to dictate terms to the International Olympic Committee.
当时只有洛杉矶进行竞选，因此能够向国际奥委会提出条件。
It pursued a new model that relied heavily on private financing. Los Angeles also used existing stadiums as venues, erasing one of the largest costs associated with hosting the Olympics. The result? A profit.
洛杉矶追求一种全新的模式，过度依赖于私人融资。同时洛杉矶还利用现有体育场作为主场馆，大大缩减了举办奥运会的一项巨大开支。结果呢？盈利。
But the days of minimal public investment appear to be over. Russia is said to have spent an incredible $50 billion on the 2014 Sochi Olympics. China spared no expense in hosting the 2008 Beijing Games. Several stadiums built in Rio are expected to be used only lightly now that this summer’s games are over.
但是最小公共投资的日子似乎已经结束。据说俄罗斯在2014年的索契奥运会上令人难以置信地花费了500亿美元。中国不惜代价举办2008年北京奥运会。里约建起了数个体育场，预计在今年夏季奥运会结束后的使用率极低。
The IOC will meet next year to select a host city for 2024. only Budapest, Paris and Los Angeles are still in the running.
明年国际奥委会将选出2024年奥运会的举办城市。目前只有布达佩斯、巴黎和洛杉矶在竞选。
