- Title: Ruined and neglected, Sarajevo tracks still hold hope for some
- Date: 17th January 2018
- Summary: MOUNT TREBEVIC, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA (JANUARY 16, 2018) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF ABANDONED BOBSLEIGH TRACK ON MOUNT TREBEVIC VARIOUS OF PEOPLE WALKING BY GRAFFITI-STREWN BOBSLEIGH TRACK (SOUNDBITE) (Bosnian) HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT FROM SARAJEVO, LEJLA HODZIC, SAYING: "It's incredible to think that this event took place around here and that people are still talking about it toda
- Embargoed: 31st January 2018 13:15
- Keywords: 1984 Olympics Sarajevo Bobsleigh
- Location: SARAJEVO, MOUNT JAHORINA, MOUNT BJELASNICA, MOUNT IGMAN, MOUNT TREBEVIC; BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
- City: SARAJEVO, MOUNT JAHORINA, MOUNT BJELASNICA, MOUNT IGMAN, MOUNT TREBEVIC; BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
- Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Topics: Olympics,Sport
- Reuters ID: LVA0017YI14QN
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:Once a pride of Olympic Sarajevo and known as the steepest and fastest in the world, the bobsleigh track on the Mount Trebevic is now devastated and abandoned, a distant shade of its former glory.
As with other sport facilities built for the Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olympic Games but then ruined during the Bosnian war in the 1990s, the current poor condition of the track is a result of neglect, political interference and incompetence.
Some young Bosnians cannot even imagine that a concrete monster meandering through the woods above the Bosnian capital, covered with graffiti, was once buzzing with international competitors and visitors from across the world.
War destruction, the administration divided along ethnic lines and transition from one political system to another have all contributed to the slow pace of recovery of once popular winter sports and arenas.
For example, during and after the Sarajevo games, all Olympic facilities located within a 22-kilometre radius around the city were owned and run by a single Sarajevo-based organisation.
But after the war, various local municipalities have taken over the facilities, such as ski tracks, and leased them to regional companies operating separately from each other.
Due to a lack of political consensus between different governments in Bosnia, Sarajevo had to cancel the organisation in 2017 of the biggest sport event after the Olympics, the European Youths Olympic Festival, and postpone it until 2019.
The preparations for the EYOF 2019 could only kick off after the two cities, Sarajevo and East Sarajevo, which was carved out of the Serb-held parts of the capital after the 1992-95 war, had agreed to invest their assets and work together.
While the Zetra Olympic Hall in Sarajevo and ski tracks on nearby mountains have been reconstructed and modernised, the Trebevic bobsleigh track, as well as ski jumps and cross-country tracks on the Mountain Igman remain devastated.
Authorities say their reconstruction would be too expensive and unsustainable.
But the president of Bosnia's sleighing association and the former Yugoslavia's two-time champion, Senad Omanovic, believes that the renovated track could be profitable with international teams coming to train there.
He convinced other sport enthusiasts to join him to clean part of the track to enable juniors from his sleighing team to use it for training on the luges on wheels during the summer.
They began training in 2014 and teams from other European countries, such as Slovakia, Turkey, Poland and Slovenia have been also holding their summer training on the Trebevic track.
While enthusiasts like Omanovic are optimistic that the track may be opened for practice again, some younger Sarajevans like Hana Bajric, a high school student, are less upbeat.
"I don't believe it will ever be reconstructed. There are more urgent things to repair in this country," Bajric told Reuters. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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