The Tokyo 2020 Olympics in a year’s time may well be the last Olympics of its kind.

In the modern period the cost of hosting the games has steadily increased. It cost just £320m to host the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 and they were the first summer Olympic Games since 1932 to turn a profit. But by 2008 the cost for the Beijing Olympics had ballooned to an estimated $44bn. As the most expensive modern Olympics in history, Beijing was admittedly something of a blip, London 2012 had a final operating cost of a more modest $10.4bn. But the trajectory is unmistakable, each Olympic Games costs more than the one that preceded it. 

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