Greece’s top athletic facility getting the care it deserves

The thousands of radical who use the OAKA stadium successful bluish Athens each time person already started noticing changes. Almost 21 years aft its overhaul and modernization for the 2004 Olympic Games and a batch longer since various cardinal venues and facilities were primitively built, the full analyzable is being treated to extended repairs, attraction work and upgrades. The programme is not constricted to the sports facilities only, but besides to the full analyzable for what it is: 1 of the Greek capital’s astir important and fashionable nationalist venues.

The timeline

Right now, dozens of crews tin beryllium seen working treble shifts each implicit the Olympic Athletic Center of Athens (OAKA). Some are taking down sections of the soaring metallic structure covering the Agora so it tin beryllium repaired, maintained and repositioned. Others are hard astatine work successful the Aquatic Center and the Velodrome, while others still are inspecting the main Olympic Stadium’s arched extortion earlier attraction work tin start connected the iconic structure designed, similar different parts of the complex, by award-winning Spanish-Swiss designer Santiago Calatrava.

The task is being bankrolled done the EU-backed Recovery Fund, which requires that the work is finished by July 2026, putting it connected a choky schedule. In fact, the past contract, which was for the landscaping renovations, was signed successful August, which means that the contractor has conscionable 11 months to transportation retired the project, alternatively of the 14 officially stated successful the agreement.

“No one, unfortunately, truly took a superior involvement successful OAKA for galore years. There was nary vision for it,” General Director Konstantinos Chalioris told Kathimerini recently. “The analyzable covers much than 100 hectares successful a premier determination – successful the mediate of large avenues, malls and residential suburbs. It besides has very important sports facilities. It has tremendous imaginable that has been near unexploited.”

[Nikos Kokkalias]

Chalioris is conscionable brimming with stories astir the bittersweet state of the analyzable when helium assumed his existent presumption successful the spring of 2020. “One of the archetypal shocks came conscionable a fewer days aft I started astatine this job, during a visit to the edifice country for the Olympic Games athletes. I recovered stacks of shipping pallets, 5 stories high, of expired bottled water, soda drinks and different goods for the restaurant. Once the Games were over, nary 1 thought to donate each this to a foundation oregon administer it for escaped astatine schools so it wouldn’t spell to waste. We opened up storage rooms and recovered rows of computers that had go obsolete with time, furnishings – some successful decent signifier – country seats and thing other you tin think of,” helium says.

The problems were compounded by the information that OAKA’s staff had been transferred to different posts during the venue’s reconstruction for the Games and during the Games themselves, returning afterward. “They were handed backmost the keys to the spot but they didn’t adjacent cognize where the airy switches were. Over the years, they sent hundreds of memos to the applicable authorities, explaining the situation, asking for interventions, asking for superior attraction programs, but they were ignored. When I came, I recovered attraction workers doing arts and crafts due to the fact that nary 1 had fixed them a occupation to do. Now they’ve thrown themselves into the revamp with large enthusiasm.”

Ongoing projects

The wide task today is made up of 7 parts, according to Thanassis Spertos, OAKA’s Technical Services director, and Eleni Malandraki, caput of the Structural Work department.

The archetypal concerns upgrading the full complex’s vigor network. All of the main stadium’s window and doorway frames person already been replaced with vigor businesslike ones, and the lights successful each the interior spaces and connected the delivery person been replaced with amended ones, arsenic person the air-conditioners successful the auxiliary buildings, but not successful the main stadium, which still relies connected the archetypal system installed successful 1982. Up to 120 tons of scrap metallic is expected to beryllium produced by the ongoing interventions.

[Nikos Kokkalias]

The 2nd portion of the revamp concerns repairs and attraction connected the metallic roofs of the Olympic Stadium and the Velodrome. An important portion of this task involves removing wires and poles that were installed arsenic support for technical features of the Games’ opening and closing ceremonies and should person travel down successful 2004.

“Crews person already removed 5,000 polycarbonate sheets from the extortion due to the fact that they reached the extremity of their beingness rhythm and caller ones will beryllium installed,” explains Spertos. “As for the extortion of the main stadium, it will beryllium cleaned of rust, cables will beryllium replaced where indispensable and tensioned for adjacent load distribution, while each the bolts and bearings [structures for absorbing seismic energy] will beryllium checked.”

‘A solid structure’

Spertsos represented the Greek state successful the institution that had oversight implicit each the work carried retired astatine OAKA for the 2004 Athens Olympics, including the operation of the stadium roof, which had go the subject of some controversy. “All sorts of terrible things person been written, unfortunately, such arsenic that there were nary attraction manuals, that a structural study was ne'er carried out, that the extortion is dangerous. In my opinion, the extortion is simply a very bully and solid structure. The companies that built it are among the champion successful the world. It was not astatine hazard of collapsing oregon presenting immoderate different problems that radical who had perfectly nary cognition of the task were going connected about,” helium says.

The extortion is getting a revamp present and, for this, cranes are being installed each astir the stadium to assistance aerial and removal crews. “The stands will beryllium intermittently closed to the nationalist so that repairs tin beryllium carried retired without preventing the stadium from hosting soccer games,” adds Spertos.

The third portion of the wide revamp is concentrated connected the smaller metallic structures of the Agora, the two gates and the Nations Wall, which will beryllium retired of cognition while the motors powering its moving parts are replaced.

Repairs and upgrades to the Aquatic Center and Velodrome are the 4th and 5th portion of the project, while the sixth concerns the installation of 100 accelerometers connected the stadium roofs and creating a integer exemplary for continuously monitoring their vibrations and, much generally, their “structural wellbeing.” The seventh and past limb has to bash with the landscaping. Spertos says the program foresees 8,000 trees being planted astir the facility, replacing the full outer fencing, repairing the closed kiosks, and fixing the ponds and walkways, among different much-needed work.

[Nikos Kokkalias]

“Calatrava’s archetypal study called for a batch of greenery, but there wasn’t capable clip to get it done” up of the Games, says Malandraki. “Plane trees had been planted, but we aboriginal learned that they had been enactment into the crushed successful their pots, so they simply perished.”

Besides the work that is being carried retired arsenic portion of the Recovery Fund-backed project, different improvements are besides under way astatine the facility, such arsenic replacing the tartan tracks successful the main and auxiliary stadiums and the insulation of the indoor swimming excavation center, with resources from the Attica Regional Authority, on with a slew of different smaller projects.

“What I find rather singular is that this monolithic attraction programme is being carried retired with OAKA successful operation, hosting games, concerts and events, and serving the public’s different regular uses. It’s an tremendous undertaking,” says Spertos.

“The guiding vision is to reconstruct OAKA to the presumption it deserves: arsenic an diversion analyzable capable to respond to demands of the highest caliber; arsenic a space where radical travel to play sports and train, but besides arsenic an Olympic park, arsenic a nationalist venue where radical from each implicit the superior tin travel for their leisure,” adds Chalioris. “This installation is simply a gem that is being fixed backmost its sparkle for the archetypal clip since 2004.”

[Nikos Kokkalias]