Sarajevo, XIV Olympic Winter Games

Thirty years ago, from February 8th to 19th, the fourteenth edition of the Olympic Winter Games was held in Sarajevo, the capital city of present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Ten years later, the Olympic site, the city, and its inhabitants were gripped in a ferocious war that still resonates today.

Sarajevo was seen as the ideal choice for the Olympic Winter Games and it was also hoped the city would become a symbol of world peace in a country that had been the epicentre for the outbreak of WWI.
The Olympic Games were seen as a huge success, in particular the luge and bobsleigh that attracted tens of thousands of spectators to the Mount Trebevic Olympic site.

Haunting, overgrown and decrepit, the once proud Olympic facilities sit covered in graffiti, bullet holes and weeds. Ski jumps remain unused, the bobsleigh track sits eerily in the forest and tomb stones marks the graves of thousands of innocent civilians.