The Olympic stadium hosted the Greek National Championships Athletics meeting on Thursday. The meeting marks the first competitive event in the arena since the stadium's renovation for the 2004 Olympic Games.

More images at Getty Images

http://editorial.gettyimages.com/source ... 0|0|0|&p=7

The stadium looks pretty average really. The roof hasnt really done much.

I don't know how many where watching SBS Dateline when they had a story on the Olympics and the terrorism. It seems they evicted a whole lot of gypsies to build a car park. Now these people are getting tuberculosis and other third world disease at a contaminated site 50 kms away from the city. They where not too happy that the Olympics had come to Greece.

We are public enemy No 1 in Greece. Apparently where sabotaging with our travel warning as we don't want Greece to be better then Sydney. That made me laugh

yeh i saw that. quite shocking really, imagine the public uproar that would have caused here if the organisers of sydney evicted a group of people and put em in the conditions they have to live in. there have been some very funny arguments on various forums about australian's wanting to ruin the athens games so sydney's can be better. nothing funnier than a bunch of over sensitive greeks having a sad at something so trivial. (and no i dont hate greeks, just the ones with no brains)

mike

the stadium still looks very poor well not poor but it could have been way better.

I have been hearing reports that like only about 1/4 if tickets available for athens have been sol dand a this stage ot the lead up to sydney just over half were sold

Athens is going to be one of the porest olympics ever if they dont get their sh*t together in about 40 days

i also read that there are only around 5.5 million tickets abailable for the Athen's olympics in comparison to the 7.6 million for Sydney. something like that...

mike

Mike

I think it's reasonable if you cosider that Greece's population it's around 11 million.

Here some fresh images:

The surrounding area

Post removed by Mike D.

Apologies for my behaviour....

Here's some pretty up to date pics of the main Athens Olympic complex.
What do you think?

[img]http://pro.corbis.com/images/DWF15-821854.jpg?size=67&uid={cdc5430d-f506-479d-89cd-925f91e6419a}

[/img]http://pro.corbis.com/images/DWF15-821860.jpg?size=67&uid={be2149cc-5f93-4d53-8c7c-84442d1a436a}

[img]http://pro.corbis.com/images/DWF15-821863.jpg?size=67&uid={bb316368-d1ec-41ae-8623-614a0a7f1ae5}

[img]http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/07/16/magazine/18style.slide4.jpg

[/img]http://www.athens2004.com/Images/Multimedia/images/24Jul2004OakaSur1_p.jpg

The Velodrome















Velodrome and Entrance Arch.

You Aussies make me laugh.....


I'll tell you what. I'll match any of the stadia you guys had in Sydney. As Mike pointed out, most have been praised, they are world class, athletes have been very impressed in the numerous test events that have been carried out.


Yes, thats right, I said test events. Athens is actually done and ready to host the games. Only finishing touches (ie landscaping) are being applied.


I find it very funny how some say our venues are boring, when Sydney epitomized boring. lol

Just a taste:














Much more just like this.

eh why not, I will round out the Faliro Coastal Olympic Complex:


Beach Volleyball








Peace & Frienship Stadium - Indoor Volleyball








Karaiskaki Football Stadium








Not to shabby eh.

Hold your breaths Gentlemen...

although you make some reasonable points, i'm a little intrigued about the one i've quoted...




more insignificant than Kiribati, Burkina Faso, Andorra, Guadelope - they're countries by the way Mike D.

black box flight recorder, ultrasound, penicillin, lawn mower, pace maker, aspirin, bionic ear, influenza and anthrax vaccine, over the horizon radar, major exporter of coal, iron ore, gold, nickel, sliver, lead, zinc, aluminium, natural gas, beef, wheat, wool, aquaculture, sloar tchnology, the most tech savvy nation per capita in the Asia Pacific, more than 2.5 million Aussies speak a second language, leaders in biotech, nanotech, genomics, major tourist destination etc. etc.


still meaningless and insignificant?....

Fair call Lucretius (re ticket sales). However Greece is surrounded by Europe, Africa and the Middle East and international visitors definitely contribute heavily to ticket numbers. In fact when you look at the basic geography of Sydney compared to the rest of the world it has a far less immediate population range. I wasn't being critical towards Athens, it just surprised me that the Athens games with "the best stadium blah blah" means there will be over 25% less patrons involved. Stadiums are big concrete blocks, it’s the people that use them that make the games a success

Thanks to that London newspaper that leaked the opening ceremony plans too. From what they said it should be excellent, then again these are British tabloids...

mike

PS. something tells me austadiums was mentioned on an international forum somewhere else... why all the newbies?

PPS. I think someone should tell the Greeks to lose their “the world is out to get us” attitude before the Olympics. Of course people will be critical take a big look at the media they are the most pessimistic life forms alive, but so long as the actual event turns out fine, who cares!