Kiev's Olympic Stadium

Kiev's refurbished Olympic Stadium

The grandiose building work in the heart of the capital is coming to an end. Tomorrow, 8 October, the renovated Olympic National Sports Complex will be unveiled in a huge and colourful ceremony. This is the arena where on 1 July next year the final match of Euro-2012 will be played. It is crucial for Ukraineas fellow host Polandwill open next summer’s football fest, which is the third biggest sports tournament after the Football World Cup and the Olympic Games. Four host cities in each country will stage the games. In Ukrainethe cities are the “cultural capital” of Lviv, the “second capital” Kharkiv, the “capital of Donbass” Donetsk and, of course, the country’s capital, Kyiv. But let’s get back to the stadium in Kyiv.

Football-loving Colombian star Shakira will be helping to create a party mood with her music at the opening. She penned a song called “Waka-Waka”, which became the official song of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa in 2010.

During the reconstruction of the stadium many unique operations were completed, and quite a few “construction” records were broken. Let’s look at some key stats.

Key numbers about reconstruction:
119,000 cubic metres of concrete used for building works
100,000 square metres of granite used on decorating works at the NSC and the surrounding area
48,000 square metres – the area of the roof over the stands
12,000 square metres of the façade is glazed
40 km – total length of the cables
760 tons – the total weight of the entire cable-stayed system

608 powerful floodlights installed on the roof, which make up the lighting system
88 Full Range and 80 low-frequency networks make up the sound system of the Bowl at the stadium
4.4 trillion colours are displayed on the LED displays, the largest in Ukraine
43 fast food kiosks make up the system to serve fans. Thanks to the in-house factory kitchen at the arena 60,000 guests can be fed simultaneously: 4,000 guests in the VIP-area and 54,000 people in the fast food outlets.