Paris and Los Angeles may have officially won big on Wednesday when the International Olympic Committee confirmed they'd host the Olympics in 2024 and 2028, respectively, but they're also poised to waste a colossal amount of money on stadiums that will wither away as expensive husks of former glory.

L.A. and California have every reason to be nervous, but before the host committee melts its keyboard buttons firing off an angry missive in defense of this plan, we'll just say that it looks great on paper. Plans to build an Olympic Village and media village were scrapped in favor of using UCLA and USC dorms. After a recent spate of sports facility construction, the city already has all the venues its needs for games.

Also, it's already hosted the Olympics before -- in 1932 and 1984 -- and retains some idea of how to do so successfully. Finally, $1.2 billion of the $5.3 billion that the city plans to spend on the event will be poured into infrastructure improvements that would ostensibly benefit the entire city -- while the rest is dedicated toward operations. However, there is a reason why Boston ran screaming from the same 2024 Summer Olympics bid that Los Angeles originally wished for and that Paris won: that price almost never holds.

When the U.S. last hosted an Olympic Games, the Winter Games in Salt Lake City in 2002, it cost $1.2 billion -- with $600 million coming from tax dollars. However, it operated at a $101 million profit and paid off all related debt by 2002. However, the $15 billion Greece paid for the 2004 Summer Games in Athens led to a $14.5 billion loss and a debt crisis. Last year's $13.1 billion Summer Games in Rio left local government so broke that Rio de Janeiro State University can't start classes this year because there is no money left to pay employees.

Most often, however, the signs of Olympic excess aren't on the books, but within the crumbling ruins of the venues left behind. While Rio's seemed to be falling apart during the games themselves, the globe is dotted with Olympic leftovers that now seemingly exist solely to decay. We took a look back through recent Olympics and found ten relics that are indicative of the often-fruitless spending that goes into this biennial debt buffet.

Video: Check out These Abandoned Olympic Stadiums

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Editors' pick: Originally published Aug. 18.