Greece
Karaiskákis Stadium
The Karaiskákis Stadium is in the Neo Faliro area of Piraeus. It is the home ground of Olympiacos FC. The stadium is named after Georgios Karaiskákis, hero of the Greek War of Independence, who was mortally wounded in this area.
It was used during the 1896 Summer Olympics as a velodrome where Frenchman Paul Masson took the three track cycling gold medals.
It was renovated during the 1960s and again in 2004 into a 33 000 capacity all-seater stadium ready for the football competition of the 2004 Summer Olympics.
The last renovation took a record time of only 14 months, finishing just in time for the Olympic Games. At this renovation the stadium was totally demolished and built again from the beginning, facing a different direction.
21 fans of Olympiacos FC lost their lives in the stadium, after a game between Olympiacos FC and rivals AEK Athens FC, on February 1981, an incident widely known as the Karaiskákis Stadium disaster. In memory of this, some seats are black colored instead of red.
