Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys & the Olympic Ring
Why is it significant?
Walk along the old façade of the stadium, with its arches, stone horses and sculptures, and notice how modest it looks for an Olympic arena. That is because the outside belongs to 1929, and the inside to 1992. Between those two dates lies one of the saddest stories in sport.
Key Facts
| Place | Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys & the Olympic Ring |
|---|---|
| Address | Passeig Olímpic 15-17, 08038 Barcelona, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.36470, 2.15560 |
| Part of Walk | Montjuïc, the Hill of Big Dreams: Barcelona's 1929 Expo, Olympic Ring & Castle |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk along the old façade of the stadium, with its arches, stone horses and sculptures, and notice how modest it looks for an Olympic arena. That is because the outside belongs to 1929, and the inside to 1992. Between those two dates lies one of the saddest stories in sport.
The stadium was built for the Exposition and opened in 1929, with an eye on the Olympic Games. Barcelona bid for 1936 and lost the vote to Berlin. When Hitler's regime took over the Berlin Games, many on the left refused to go, and Barcelona organised an alternative: the People's Olympiad, set to open in this stadium on the 19th of July 1936.
Thousands of athletes had arrived, from teams, workers' clubs and exiles. But on the 17th and 18th of July, part of the army rose against the Republic, and on the morning of the 19th the fighting reached the streets of Barcelona. The Games were cancelled before a single race. Most athletes went home; a few stayed and joined the militias. The Spanish Civil War had begun.
Fifty-six years later, the stadium got its revenge. For the 1992 Games the old façade was kept and the ground inside was dug down to fit a modern arena. At the opening ceremony, the Paralympic archer Antonio Rebollo shot a flaming arrow towards the cauldron at the top. Whether it really landed inside or sailed just past the rim while the gas caught is still argued over in bars... but the flame lit, and the world gasped. In 2001 the stadium was named after Lluís Companys, the president of Catalonia during the war. You will meet his name again at the end of this walk.
Look west: the white needle bending over the Olympic Ring is Santiago Calatrava's communications tower, built to carry television pictures of those Games around the world, and beside it the low steel roof of the Palau Sant Jordi, by Arata Isozaki. Now head east along the Avinguda de l'Estadi, towards a white building that looks like it was drawn by a child with a ruler.