Hellinikon Olympic Complex

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Exterior view of the Hellinikon Indoor Arena

The Hellinikon Olympic Complex is situated at Hellinikon in the south Athens, approximately 16 kilometres from the Olympic Village. It was built on the site of the former Hellinikon International Airport for the staging of the 2004 Summer Olympics and 2004 Summer Paralympics. It consists of five separate venues.

Venues[]

Interior of the arena during the 2004 Summer Olympics

Hellinikon Indoor Arena[]

Main article: Hellinikon Olympic Arena

The Indoor arena is an arena adjacent to the Fencing Hall. It hosted the Basketball preliminary matches and the Handball finals at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. The facility seats 15,000[1] spectators for basketball, although only 10,700 seats were made publicly available during the Olympics - and seats 13,500 fans for handball - though only 10,300 seats were made publicly available during the games. The facility was completed on May 31, 2004 and officially opened on July 30, 2004.

During the 2004 Summer Paralympic Games, the Indoor Arena was the venue for Wheelchair rugby. It has also been the home arena of the Greek basketball club Panionios, and it has also hosted several finals matches of the Greek Cup. The Greek basketball club Panellinios also played European cup home games at the arena.

Fencing Hall[]

Main article: Hellinikon Fencing Hall

Olympic Baseball Centre[]

Main article: Hellinikon Stadium

The Olympic Baseball Centre in Athens consists of two Baseball stadiums. It was the site of the Baseball games at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. The larger stadium seats 8,700 fans-though only 6,700 seats were made publicly available during the Olympics; the smaller stadium seats 4,000 spectators, though only 3,300 seats were made publicly available during the Games. The facility had to be constructed with significant foreign help in the design, as there were only a handful of dusty baseball diamonds in the whole of Greece before the 2004 Olympics were awarded to Athens in 1997. Construction on the facility was completed on February 27, 2004, and it was officially opened on August 12, 2004, a day before the Opening Ceremonies. During the 2004 Summer Paralympic Games, the Olympic Baseball Centre was the venue for Archery.

Olympic Hockey Centre

Olympic Canoe-Kayak Slalom Centre[]

Main article: Hellinikon Olympic Canoe/Kayak Slalom Centre

Olympic Hockey Centre[]

Main article: Hellinikon Olympic Hockey Centre

Olympic Softball Stadium[]

Main article: Hellinikon Olympic Softball Stadium

Post-Olympics Development[]

The table below lists the current status and usage of the Hellinikon Olympic Complex facilities:

External 2004 Olympic Rings in November 2018
Facility Olympics Use Current/Proposed Use
Hellinikon Basketball Stadium Basketball, Handball Home court for Panellinios BC and Panionios BC (basketball).,[2] Conventions and trade shows[3] Also part of events hall with fencing hall.
Hellinikon Olympic Canoe/Kayak Slalom Centre Canoe/Kayak Turned over to a private consortium (J&P AVAX, GEP, Corfu Waterparks and BIOTER), plans to convert it to a water park[4][5]
Hellinikon Fencing Hall Fencing Part of Events hall with the basketball stadium.[6]
Hellinikon Olympic Hockey Centre Field Hockey Mini-football, will be part of new Hellinikon metropolitan park complex[7]
Hellinikon Baseball Stadium Baseball Converted to football pitch, home field of Ethnikos Piraeus F.C. (Football; Greek second division)[8][9]
Hellinikon Olympic Softball Stadium Softball Concerts[7]

There are plans to convert much of the former Hellinikon International Airport site to a metropolitan park, that would include the above facilities.[4][10]

The site is currently being used to house refugee populations in the current Refugee crisis in Europe. The three camps are currently home to over three thousand refugees living in mostly tented accommodation.[11]

External links[]

References[]

  1. ^ "Worldstadiums.com basketball [[seating capacity]]". Archived from the original on 2017-09-15. Retrieved 2008-10-01.
  2. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2010-02-10. Retrieved 2010-03-15.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. ^ "E-Tipos – Official Blog".
  4. ^ a b http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_politics_100006_03/08/2007_86425[bare URL]
  5. ^ etipos/
  6. ^ Olympicproperties.gr profile. Archived 2007-08-13 at the Wayback Machine (in English and Greek)
  7. ^ a b "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-08-01. Retrieved 2010-03-15.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  8. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-06-09. Retrieved 2010-03-15.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  9. ^ Ethnikos Piraeus
  10. ^ http://www.ana.gr/anaweb/user/showplain?maindoc=4313651&maindocimg=4312243&service=10
  11. ^ "Story Map Journal". rrse-smi.maps.arcgis.com. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
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