Goudi Olympic Complex is a sports complex in

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

. It held two of the sports venues used during the

2004 Summer Olympics The 2004 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad (), and officially branded as Athens 2004 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 13 to 29 August 2004 in Athens, Greece. The Games saw 10,625 athletes ...

. Goudi Olympic Complex was built upon a former Greek military camp. It was envisaged after the Olympics that it would be zoned as a municipal park.

Goudi Olympic Hall

The Goudi Olympic Hall was a prefabricated venue with a capacity of 4,000 for the badminton. Following the Olympics, the Goudi Olympic Complex then became the site of the

Badminton Theater The Badminton Theater () is a venue utilized for the staging of medium- and large-scale wikt:multiplex, multiplex events. Situated inside the metropolitan park of Goudi in Athens, Greece, the theater was originally designed to host concerts, play ...

, which hosted major theatrical productions. In 2012, the

Council of State A council of state is a governmental body in a country, or a subdivision of a country, with a function that varies by jurisdiction. It may be the formal name for the cabinet or it may refer to a non-executive advisory body associated with a head ...

ruled that the Theatre was illegally constructed and would have to be demolished. They ruled that though planning permission was granted, it was on the grounds that the Arena would be temporary. Though permission was granted in 2005 to make it permanent, the grant failed to consider the impact on the local community and was therefore void. This was despite the theatre company owners signing a 20 year lease and not taking any public subsidies to run profitably.

Olympic Modern Pentathlon Centre

The Modern Pentathlon Centre was created as a venue for the modern pentathlon, and hosted the 2003

Modern Pentathlon World Cup Modern Pentathlon World Cup is an annual series of modern pentathlon competitions organised by the International Modern Pentathlon Union (UIPM). Competitions are held in a number of countries and each series culminates in a World Cup Final. It is th ...

. It included a 2,500 capacity swimming pool for the swimming discipline, a 5,000 capacity arena each for the show jumping and cross-country running disciplines and one 3,000 capacity arena for the shooting and fencing disciplines.

Post-Olympics development

Following the Olympics, the Goudi Olympic Complex was mostly left dormant though the

Government of Greece The Government of Greece (Greek language, Greek: Κυβέρνηση της Ελλάδας), officially the Government of the Hellenic Republic (Κυβέρνηση της Ελληνικής Δημοκρατίας) is the collective body of the Gre ...

started to allocate land there for commercial development. In 2008, the mayor of

Zografou Zografou () is a suburban town of approximately 70,000 inhabitants in the eastern part of the Athens agglomeration, Greece. It was named after the Greek politician Ioannis Zografos. To the east of Zografou lies mount Hymettus. The area, being ...

Municipality accused the government of favouring commercial interests over benefit for the locals. As a result, this led to the complex being adapted for recreation purposes. Despite being used as the location of the theatre, the

International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; , CIO) is the international, non-governmental, sports governing body of the modern Olympic Games. Founded in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas, it is based i ...

noted in a 2019 retrospective that the complex remained unused after the Olympics.

References

{{coord, 37.983826, 23.780349, type:landmark, display=title Badminton venues Venues of the 2004 Summer Olympics Sports venues in Greece Olympic Parks