Self explanatory, I guess. My question stems from the pharaonic costs of the Sochi games, the fact that the infrastructures seem to be at time of questionable relevance to modern cities and the popular outcry over that as well as the ever shrinking list of candidates vying for the 2022 winter games (Kazakhstan and China are the last 2 remaining.)
The Olympic games were stopped by Theodosius in 394 AD. It is important to remember that the original Olympics of antiquity were a Greek religious festival, not the showcase of international camaraderie that they now represent. They were banned along with other aspects of pagan religion and Greek thought as Christianity become the official, and only tolerable, state religion.