John Burfitt visits some permanent reminders of the Games in cities that have played host.

Europe could be accused of being more than a little greedy when it comes to hosting the Olympic Games. Since the modern Olympiad began in 1896, European capitals have hosted the summer Games on 15 occasions.

The Asia-Pacific region has hosted the Games only five times - in Melbourne (1956), Tokyo (1964), Seoul (1988), Sydney (2000) and now Beijing. When Los Angeles (1932, 1984) is included, it takes the tally to seven.

Now the times when the Games have been held in these cities have been captured in several Olympic museums and memorials.

So step up to the dais and step back in time to celebrate when the Olympics came to town - or were at least in a time zone close by.

Los Angeles (1932, 1984)

The City of Angels holds the record for having the only Olympic stadium to have hosted the Games twice. The towering Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, with its grand arches and 100,000 seats, is in Exposition Park, just south of LA's downtown area.

Olympic memorials include the cauldron used in '32 and '84 and the grand bronze statues created for '84's Olympic Gateway entrance.

At one end of the park is the restored Art Deco facade of the '32 Los Angeles Swimming Stadium, which looks just as it did when Australian Clare Dennis won the gold medal there in the breaststroke.

However, the best mementos from the '32 and '84 Olympics are a few blocks away at the LA84 Foundation Sports Library whose artefacts include gold medals, street banners, posters, stadium tickets, relay torches and a miner's lamp used to carry the flame during the 1984 relay.

The library also has extensive newspaper coverage of both Olympics in its archives and news footage from 1984 such as the gold-medal winning efforts of Australians Jon Sieben (swimming), Glynis Nunn (heptathlon) and Dean Lukin (weightlifting).

Melbourne (1956)

While the Melbourne Cricket Ground hosted the 1956 Olympic Games, none of the original buildings of the arena are still standing - the Olympic Stand was pulled down in 2004.

The Lexus Centre on the banks of the Yarra River was originally built as the Olympic swimming venue and is now the only major structure from the '56 Games with its facade intact.

The best Olympic memories from Melbourne's staging of the Games can be found in the Faster, Higher, Stronger Olympic exhibition at the MCG's National Sports Museum. The cauldron lit by runner Ron Clarke to signify the opening of the Games has pride of place but the museum has more than 150 other pieces from '56, such as the gold medals won by Betty Cuthbert, Shirley Strickland and Murray Rose, Cuthbert's running spikes and Rose's swimming trunks.

Most curiously, there is also a blue cap worn by a Russian competitor during the infamous and vicious water polo match between Russia and Hungary, which became a Cold War incident.

Collectibles from a number of Olympics are also displayed, including the medals and olive branches from the Athens Games in 1896 awarded to runner Edwin Flack, Australia's first Olympic champion, and a wreath awarded to swimmer Petria Thomas at Athens in 2004.

Two iconic outfits from Sydney 2000 - Cathy Freeman's running suit and Ian Thorpe's full-body swimsuit - are other prized items in the collection.

Tokyo 1964

Many Australians recall the Tokyo Olympics as the moment Dawn Fraser made history by becoming the first swimmer to win the same event in three consecutive Olympics. During the Games, she also caused an international scandal when she stole a flag from the Japanese emperor's palace.

It was also the first time the Olympics had been held in Asia and for Tokyo, it was the Japanese capital's entree back onto the world stage after the devastation of World War II.

The Olympic cauldron was lit by runner Yoshinori Sakai, who was born in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 - the same day the world's first atomic bomb was dropped.

The Tokyo Games are fondly regarded by many Japanese for the healing bridge they created between the past and future. Prince Chichibu Memorial Sports Museum in the Tokyo National Stadium, the main venue for the '64 Games, features a range of medals, delegates' uniforms, relay torches and the flags that hung throughout the streets of Tokyo.

The award-winning film Tokyo Olympiad, acclaimed as one of the best sports documentaries of all time, screens at the museum, and follows the entire event from opening to closing ceremonies in vivid detail.

Tokyo is hoping to recapture the modern Olympic spirit with its bid to host the 2016 Games.

Seoul 1988

The second Olympic Games held in Asia are now billed by South Koreans as, "one of the most splendid moments in the 1000-year history of Korea."

While the Olympics saw East and West compete for the first time in 12 years after the boycotts of the early '80s, it did little to unify the Korean peninsula, as North Korea boycotted the Seoul Games.

But the '88 Olympics did give South Korea the chance to show that the once-politically embattled country had become a modern, gleaming city. And it hosted a sporting event which produced a number of excellent performances, including gold-medal wins by Australians Debbie Flintoff-King in hurdles and Duncan Armstrong in swimming.

The vast Seoul Olympic Museum in the city's Olympic Peace Park pays tribute to the '88 Games. Six exhibition halls in the museum recall every chapter of Seoul's journey to host the Games and all 15 days of competition.

Place of Harmony hall screens broadcasts of the entire opening and closing ceremonies; Place of Glory hall is an audio-visual feast with a commemorative movie and a special interactive film which takes viewers into the middle of the stadium to see from new angles some famous sporting scenes including dodging javelins thrown by the world's best.

Sydney 2000

Sydney welcomed the first Olympic Games of the new millennium with the party of a lifetime, which many still regard as the Emerald City's finest moment.

As the Olympics brought out some of the best September weather ever, it seems almost fitting that Sydney Olympic Park's tribute is an outdoor museum of memories located around ANZ Stadium.

A forest of 480 Games Memories Poles features the graphics, films and sounds of the Games, and the names of the 74,000 volunteers. Atop many of the poles are statues of iconic images, including unofficial mascot Fatso the Wombat and Kylie Minogue in her closing-ceremony showgirl outfit. Cathy Freeman's 400-metre gold medal-winning run is recreated in The Stride, a series of lights dotted along a pathway in Overflow Park.

Taking pride of place in the park is the Olympic Cauldron, which is now a fountain, its base containing the names of every medal winner from the 2000 Games. Other Olympic-era art, such as The Sprinter from the top of Sydney Tower, now keeps watch in its new location outside the stadium.

But it is the light towers along Olympic Boulevard which continue to shine, each tower dedicated to a host city of the modern Olympiad. There are plans for the tribute to be continued down the strip to include Beijing and all Games cities to come.

TRIP NOTES

Los Angeles

The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, 3911 South Figueroa Street, http://www.lacoliseum.com. LA84 Foundation, 2141 W Adams Blvd, http://www.la84foundation.org.

Melbourne

National Sports Museum, Melbourne Cricket Ground, Brunton Avenue, Richmond, http://www.nsm.org.au.

Tokyo

The Prince Chichibu Memorial Sports Museum, National Stadium, 10-2 Kasumigaoka, Shinjuku-ku, http://www.naash.go.jp/muse/index-en.html.

Seoul

Seoul Olympic Museum, 88 Bangi-dong, Songpa-gu, http://www.seoulolympicmuseum.com.

Sydney

The Games Memories poles and The Overflow, adjacent to ANZ Stadium on Olympic Boulevard, Sydney Olympic Park, Homebush Bay, www.sydneyolympicpark.com.au.