Athens Olympic Stadium – Spiros Louis

The Olympic Stadium (also known as the Athens Olympic Stadium, and Spiridon “Spiros” Louis Stadium, named after the man to win the first (modern) Olympic marathon race in 1896), is a stadium that is part of the Athens Olympic Sports Complex. Located in the area of Maroussi in Athens, it is the major Greek stadium and hosted the athletics events and the soccer final at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. It also hosted the Opening Ceremony on August 13, 2004, and was the site of the Closing Ceremony on August 29, 2004. The stadium’s record attendance is 74,473 but it was configured to seat 72,000 during the Olympics, though only 56,700 seats were made publicly available for the track and field events and slightly more for the football final.

The stadium was originally designed in 1979 and built in 1980-1982. It was completed in time to host the 1982 European Championships in Athletics. It was inaugurated by the President of Greece, at the time, Konstantinos Karamanlis on 8 September 1982. It also hosted several events of the 1991 Mediterranean Games and the 1997 IAAF World Championships in Athletics, sought in order to prove that it was capable of hosting major sporting events after the failure of Athens to win the 1996 Summer Olympics. It was extensively renovated in time for the Olympics, including a controversial roof designed by Santiago Calatrava that was added atop the sidelines in order to shade fans from the strong Athens sun. The roof was completed just in time for the opening of the Games, and the stadium was then officially re-opened on July 30, 2004.

The Olympic Stadium has been used at various times as a home ground by the three major football clubs of Athens, Olympiacos Piraeus, Panathinaikos and AEK Athens. Panathinaikos has been using the stadium regularly since 2005 for its matches. Starting with the 2007-8 season, they are going to return to Apostolos Nikolaidis Stadium, their old home ground until a new stadium Votanikos Arena is built. However, they will continue to use Athens Olympic Stadium for their European matches.

The stadium hosted the 2007 UEFA Champions League Final on May 23rd, 2007 between AC Milan and Liverpool FC, which was won 2-1 by AC Milan.

This stadium also hosted the 1993/94 and 2006/07 UEFA Champions League & 1982/83 European Cup Finals (AC Milan – FC Barcelona 4-0 , Hamburger SV – Juventus 1-0) as well as the 1987 Cup Winners’ Cup final (Ajax-Lokomotive Leipzig 1-0).

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