THE Panathenaic Stadium in Greece has seen its fair proportion of sport during the last 2,000 years.
However regardless of its historical historical past, it’s nonetheless going sturdy in 2023.
The Panathenaic Stadium has been in Athens for greater than 2,000 yearsCredit score: EPA
The stadium remains to be in use as we speak in spite of everything these yearsCredit score: Stefanos Kyriazis/NurPhoto
The venue within the Pagrati area of central Athens first hosted occasions as early because the sixth century BC – together with races and even the Panathenaic Video games each 4 years in honour of the goddess Athena.
Spectators would merely sit on the pure sloping banks – with a restricted limestone seating construction for probably the most prestigious friends understood to have first been constructed round 330 BC.
Then from roughly 140 to 144 AD, Herodes Atticus oversaw the entire reconstruction of the Panathenaic Stadium in marble, with an enormous 50,000 capability.
Nonetheless, following the Greek resurgence within the second century, the stadium fell into damage after its abandonment – not helped by the banning of assorted festivals and barbaric occasions.
A lot in order that the taking part in space turned a area of wheat by the fourth century.
And it was not till the nineteenth century that archaeologists found traces of the deserted venue – earlier than the Greek authorities funded a refurbishment forward of the 1896 Olympics.
The opening and shutting ceremony for the primary fashionable Video games, in addition to athletics, gymnastics, weightlifting and wrestling, have been staged on the Panathenaic Stadium – with an elevated capability of 80,000.
In the course of the twentieth century, in the meantime, the long-lasting U-shaped area was used for a number of occasions together with the 1968 European Cup Winners’ Cup in basketball, navy festivals and live shows.
Then in 2004, it hosted the archery on the Olympics in addition to the homecoming a part of the Greek nationwide soccer crew that received the Euros.
Extremely, the Panathenaic Stadium remains to be in operation as we speak – actually 1000’s of years on.
And it even hosted Greece’s Davis Cup tie towards Slovakia in September as world No7 tennis ace Stefanos Tsitsipas struggled to ship for his nation within the historic amphitheatre.
The stadium was renovated for the 1896 OlympicsCredit score: Corbis
The stadium was used for Greece’s Davis Cup tie in SeptemberCredit score: Stefanos Kyriazis/NurPhoto