ATHENS, Greece (AP) – Two years after all the pomp and glamour, Athens is struggling with its Olympic inheritance.

The venues built for the 2004 Summer Games were constructed at considerable cost. Now these additions to Greece’s national heritage generate criticism – and red ink.

A recent visit to the equestrian venue at Markopoulo, east of Athens, revealed manicured grounds primed for competition. They’re also empty. At the nearby shooting venue, two guards, a dog, and concrete road barriers offered a dubious greeting. At both, entrance was denied.

The shooting center has been beset by contractual disputes and extensive looting – according to a report in Athens’ Eleftherotypia newspaper – while the equestrian cross-country facility awaits conversion as the capital’s second golf course.

IOC president Jacques Rogge called the Athens Olympics “unforgettable, dream games.” Now, with the Olympic calendar halfway to Beijing in 2008, managing the aftermath of the Athens Olympics has become deeply controversial in a land where the ancient games were first held 2,800 years ago.

The domestic political blame game continues unabated. For years the Socialists – now in opposition after governing for most of the past two decades – endured ridicule over an Olympics building spree they launched late and with minimal post-games planning.

Turning the tables, Socialist spokesman Nikos Athanasakis this month accused the governing conservatives, elected in March 2004, of “idly watching the decay of the precious Olympic inheritance.” The government retorts it was dealt a poor hand. Little wonder that Athens 2004’s chief organizer, Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, has kept a low profile.

In any event, the games’ formidable bottom line – set in the 2006 budget at $10.9 billion but estimated by officials as high as $16.8 billion – is being inflated by annual upkeep costs of $128.8 million.

While praising the 2004 Games, organizers for Beijing 2008 and London 2012 have pointedly avoided the Athens trap by getting a fast start and planning for when the flame is out. Such a strategy has been urged by Denis Oswald, now reprising his 2004 Athens role as chief IOC overseer for London.

“Greece did not let us down,” Oswald told The Associated Press in a statement. He added that “one of the key lessons from Athens … is that it is important to get out of the starting blocks early in order to avoid venues being finished late.”

Unquestionably, the Athens Games left bright spots.

Tourist arrivals are up sharply, while the Greek economy is expanding at a 4 percent clip, defying predictions of a post-games bust. New transit infrastructure and the capital’s brighter facade, revamped hotels and archaeological sites linked by cobblestone walkways benefit residents and visitors alike.

Greece’s international reputation has “vastly improved” since the games, insists Stratos Safioleas, who consulted for both the London and Seoul Games bids and worked for Athens 2004.

Athens has drawn track, rowing and cycling competitions this summer.

And alongside events like the Eurovision song contest in May, the main Olympic complex at OAKA has hosted a stage of the Acropolis car rally, Panathinaikos and AEK home soccer games.

Next month it will host track’s World Cup and, next year, the Champions League final.

But longer-term uses are still elusive. Many Olympic facilities threaten to become white elephants because of slow conversion, resistance to opening the new national heritage to private money or outright neglect.

Options for commercial seekers are limited to long-term leases; outright sale is ruled out.

Hellenic Olympic Properties SA, headed by lawyer Christos Hadjiemmanuil, is developing 22 Olympic venues across Greece out of a sketchy plan he inherited and calls a “nonstarter.”

Six offers have been published and three contracts signed: one for a cultural-entertainment center at the former badminton arena, a second for the table tennis and rhythmic gymnastics venue, and a third for the International Broadcast Center, for commercial use. Part of the IBC will house two sports museums.

Expected deals this fall include the coastal beach volleyball, sailing and canoe-kayak whitewater facilities. The taekwondo facility awaits government approval as Athens’ first convention center, in one of several public-private partnerships to come.

The Hellenikon site hosted baseball and softball – since eliminated from the Olympics – and field hockey, which remains virtually unknown in Greece. The facilities are cavernous and largely unused while plans to reinvent the site as Europe’s biggest metropolitan park have been mired in quarrels over a housing project.

Other indoor venues for wrestling, judo, boxing and weightlifting all face major conversion work. A planned Health Ministry move to the Main Press Center has been delayed, while the ecologically vulnerable Skinias flatwater rowing and canoeing venue attracts more reeds than investors.

And history often takes precedence. The marble horseshoe stadium in Athens, centerpiece of the 1896 Games and used two years ago for archery, has been restored.

At Olympia, site of the 2004 shot put, archaeologists this spring nixed proposals for a one-day track and field competition.

While Athens would prefer an Olympic legacy of heroically overcoming obstacles, the lesson drawn by others seems to be this: Don’t create so many in the first place.

AP-ES-08-11-06 1525EDT