In one lane, a man on a bicycle. In the other, a Ferrari 430 Scuderia. The Ferrari never had a chance. ABC News Videos ABC News. Top Stories. Saturday, October 2. Top Stories. Saturday, October 2. Originals. More A Murder on Orchard Street More ABC News Features More Closet Raiders More Career Canines More Raising America 1. Happier More Popcorn More Uncomfortable More ABC News Hacks More Food Forecast More Finding The Next More Garage Geniuses More Real Biz More Second Tour More In a Minute More Underground. Watch the latest news videos and the top news video clips online at ABC News. Mark RalstonAgence FrancePresse Getty Images The Birds Nest stadium in Beijing is now rarely used. But it has fared better than other venues built. Features athlete profiles, daily online blogs, videos and photos from the games. The Walt Disney Company is facing a lawsuit alleging it violated federal law aimed at protecting childrens online privacy. The company allegedly allowed ad tech. The Beijing guide, classifieds, blogs, events, directory, everything fun in the city Watch breaking news videos, viral videos and original video clips on CNN. The Asahi Shimbun is widely regarded for its journalism as the most respected daily newspaper in Japan. The English version offers selected articles from. Ruin Porn the Aftermath of the Beijing Olympics. HONG KONG The photographic genre known as ruin porn those grim pictures of mothballed auto factories, dead power plants, vine swallowed houses has a new theme Olympic venues. The Reuters photographer David Gray looked at some of the 2. Olympic sites in Beijing and found a surprising amount of neglect and decay after just four years. His slide show is here. HgZgFBfJ0/0.jpg' alt='Watch Beijing Bicycle Online' title='Watch Beijing Bicycle Online' />Disclaimer Authorized by Beijing Zeefer Consulting Ltd. Company Site http Online Store of China Industry Reports httpwww. AllChinaReports. com. TEDx is an international community that organizes TEDstyle events anywhere and everywhere celebrating locallydriven ideas and elevating them to a global. Rowing, beach volleyball and cycling facilities built new for the 0. Games are now deserted, rusting, even falling apart. The baseball complex, always intended to be temporary, has been demolished, its footprint covered with leftover wreckage. At the derelict kayaking course, Mr. Gray saw a security guard dipping his bicycle innertube in the murky water, testing for punctures. The crown jewel of Olympic architecture in 2. National Stadium, known as the Birds Nest, the site of the opening and closing ceremonies and the track and field events. The reported cost of construction nearly 5. The striking stadium, with 9. And it has been rarely used since the Games. As my colleague Michael Wines reported, there was a Jackie Chan concert in the year after the Olympics, plus an Italian soccer match, an opera and a musicale. Two winters ago, a playland was set up inside called Happy Ice and Snow Season. And a guy walked a tightrope strung from the stadiums rafters for about five hours every day for two months. Apparently, it was some sort of record. A video is here. The Olympic Green, adjoining the Birds Nest, hosted a Swamp Soccer World Cup tournament last week, a 1. These days, though, the Birds Nest is mostly empty. They do give tours of the place, and for the equivalent of 2. Segway around the track where Usain Bolt sprinted to two gold medals and two world records. A replay of the Jamaicans 1. An audio tour calls the stadium a symbol of the rise of the Chinese nation that will follow the nations footsteps in its rise to glory. Rumors persist in the capital that it will become a shopping mall. Meanwhile, panhandlers dressed as Fuwa, the Beijing Olympic mascot, cruise the plazas of the Birds Nest, tricking passersby into posing for pictures and then demanding payment. For a recent piece about the Olympic venues for NPR, Louisa Lim spoke to Ai Weiwei, the acclaimed artist who consulted on the design of the Birds Nest. He said the building had become propagandized and not integrated into the life of the city. For that reason, he told Ms. Lim, he has refused to go inside the stadium. His comments begin at 4 1. Another stunning venue from 2. Water Cube, scene of Michael Phelpss astonishing run of eight gold medals. At least the Cube is still operating as a recreational water park. With 1. 5 million in annual government subsidies, it breaks even. The Cube also has begun selling limited edition bottles of Water Cube wine in conjunction with Chinas most famous distiller of Moutai, the gasoline like, sorghum based liquor. Overbuilding, cost overruns and the expensive maintenance of world class but rarely used venues the chronic Olympic legacy issues have long been a financial burden for host cities. Still, the cities keep bidding and building As Michael wrote, the Olympics seem to bring out profligacy in even buttoned down governments. In Athens, site of the 2. Summer Games, 2. 1 of the 2. Some even blame the Greek financial crisis, in part, on the 1. Games. The poster child of ill conceived venues is undoubtedly the main Olympic Stadium in Montreal. A report on Canadian Broadcasting said the stadium became a familiar mix of tragedy and farce, the brainchild of Jean Drapeau, the late mayor who was widely portrayed here as a megalomaniac who led Montreal over a cliff. The mayors supporters said he was a visionary whose idea for a signature stadium cum landmark was undone by poor engineering and bad luck. They cited the Eiffel Tower, originally an eyesore for Parisians, as a precedent for the stadiums radical design. The stadiums parachute like roof was not in place when the 1. Olympics began. Later, the supporting tower caught fire massive chunks of concrete fell off the stadium, once during a baseball game the Kevlar roof tore a new Teflon roof was deployed, but collapsed. The Big O, as the stadium was locally known, soon became the Big Owe and the Big Woe. The original estimate was 1. In the end, it cost 1. The overall debt from the Games took more than 3. The BBC sports editor, David Bond, recently looked at some recent Olympic venues and their legacy issues. One excerpt from his blog post The IOC makes demands which no city can reasonably be expected to cope with. Only Sydney, after a decade of late legacy planning, has managed to now find proper sustainable uses for the majority of its venues. Beijing and Barcelona have fared less well. London is hoping its use of temporary venues and advanced planning will buck the trend on legacy but the IOC must know that asking cities to build facilities for 2. D 4 Dance Season 3. Romes withdrawal and the absence of an American contender in the race for the 2. Olympics is a clear sign that the days of world class cities bidding for the Games may be coming to an end.