Well, the problems encountered by London and Tokyo, respectively the 2012 and 2020 Summer Games hosts, seem unlikely to encourage a revival of the genre.

Yes, the Japanese capital is building a new national stadium; it had little choice having knocked the old one, dating from 1958, down.

But, with Japanese construction costs much under the microscope in the Olympic world, it is likely to be considerably less expensive and, from what I have seen, more modest in appearance than the highly distinctive original design by Zaha Hadid.

London, meanwhile, seems to have caused itself unnecessary trouble and expense in order to retain a capability to host the 2017 World Athletics Championships.

If I have interpreted the latest comments emanating from London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s office correctly, the overall cost of transforming a patch of run-down East London real estate into, first, the beating heart of London 2012 and then the current multi-use venue utilised by West Ham United, looks to have risen to £752 million ($941 million/€845 million).

This is freakishly close to the £757 million ($948 million/€851 million) overall cost of the new Wembley.

The root of the legacy problem for these temples of sporting pageantry is that there is only one other athletics event likely to draw a similar-sized audience as the Olympic track and field competition, and that is the biennial world championships.

A viable after-life for a fully permanent Olympic stadium of the traditional type, used for ceremonies and athletics, is almost certain to involve a change of emphasis - and in Europe this almost certainly means football.

There are plenty of places where football fans watch their teams from the far side of a running track.

But with tickets to top games commanding ever fancier prices, supporters seemingly are starting to expect better.

"My view is football fans want to sit as close as possible," stadium consultant Paul Fletcher told me when I called him this week.

The transformation of the venue used for London 2012 included a retractable seating system designed to bring football and rugby spectators close to the pitch.

But recent crowd trouble has trained an unwelcome new spotlight on the stadium.

And even if this proves short-lived - as the success Britain has had over the years with addressing its once rampant football hooliganism problem leads one to hope that it will be – that huge three-quarters of a billion-pound overall price tag seems sure to continue to attract adverse comment against a backdrop of UK living standards that have been under pressure for the best part of a decade.

One can already say that the next Summer Olympic year after Tokyo - 2024 - will not add to the list of 60-80,000-capacity athletics stadia it has been necessary to find a supplementary or new use for.

The recently-published second installment of the respective candidature files of Los Angeles and Paris confirm that these two candidate-cities would both use well-established venues for track and field should they win the right to host the 2024 Games.

In Paris’ case, this would be the 18-year-old Stade de France.

Details from the bid’s venue funding and development blueprint put the cost of permanent works to ready the venue for its hoped-for new role in eight years’ time at $79.8 million (£64 million/€72 million) in 2016 dollars.

Even with overlay, the anticipated cost still comes in at below $100 million (£80 million/€90 million).

Los Angeles would use the Memorial Coliseum, which will be 101 years old by 2024, and has already served at two Olympic Games.

When I turned to the expected venue funding and development table, I was surprised to see that - unlike Paris and Budapest, the third city in the race - it was being "withheld from publication" to "protect LA24 proprietary information".

Information from this section, readers were told, would be "part of the Games budget submitted with Candidature File Part 3 in February 2017”.

Earlier this year, however, a senior bid official had told me that the Coliseum would undergo a $270 million (£216 million/€242 million) renovation, to be completed by 2019 and funded by the University of Southern California (USC) for its own sports needs, regardless of the outcome of the 2024 race.

The latest news release on the Coliseum renovation website states:

"Among the planned renovations is the building of a new structure on the south side of the stadium that will house suites, loge boxes and club seats, topped by a new press box.

"Other renovations include replacing every seat in the stadium, adding aisles and increasing leg room, installing new video screens and lighting, adding new concession stands and upgrading concourses, as well as restoring the iconic peristyle."

Budapest does list a new permanent athletics venue, the Olympic Stadium, in its blueprint, costed – including overlay – at $269.3 million (£215 millon/€241 million), an almost identical sum to the LA Coliseum renovation.

Budapest bid leaders explained to me this summer in Rio, however, that the plan was for the stadium, on the banks of the Danube, to be slimmed down to a much more manageable capacity of 15,000 in legacy mode.

This struck me as an inventive way of attempting to provide a worthwhile legacy for the bedrock Olympic sport without running the risk of creating a white elephant.

So it looks, all things considered, as if we will indeed have to wait a considerable time yet for the next Bird’s Nest.

● As the proud owner of a 30-year-old Cubs cap, albeit a freebie, I couldn’t let this week pass without tipping it to the north-side Chicago baseball franchise, who ended a 108-year World Series drought by outlasting Cleveland in a seven-game series that went down to the wire.

In 1986-87, I lived barely a mile from the team’s Wrigley Field base and had been in the city for less than a month before I was taken to a ball game there.

I vividly recall the kindergarten atmosphere, which contrasted starkly with the loutishness of the English football terraces I had been used to frequenting.

And, naturally, in keeping with their reputation, the Cubs lost, to the Padres.

I was back again for last season’s home opener and this time, glory be, they beat Cincinnati.

I’m no expert, but I thought they had the look of a good young team in the making.

And now, what do you know, they have finally got one of sport’s most gnarled and notorious monkeys off their back.

Of course, the catch, once the celebrations have died down, may be that the entire identity of the club, built up over decades, as a bunch of lovable losers, will have to change.