OAKA Olympic Indoor Hall

The O.A.C.A. Olympic Indoor Hall (honorarily named Nikos Galis Olympic Indoor Hall since 2016), which is a part of the Olympic Athletic Center of Athens (O.A.C.A.) «Spyros Louis» (Greek: O.A.K.A. «Σπύρος Λούης»), was completed in 1995, and was the largest indoor venue in use for sporting events at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. It is located in Marousi, Athens. It is considered to be one of the biggest and most modern indoor sports arenas in all of Europe.

The 19,250-capacity arena also contains a training facility. Since 2016, it is named after the well-known Greek former basketball player Nikos Galis.

Construction

Nikos Galis Olympic Indoor Hall is notable for its distinctive A-frame roof that features four huge pillars, each of which is 35 meters tall, that stand 108 meters apart from each other. According to the Greek Ministry of Sports, it is the largest indoor sporting arena of its kind in the world. The arena is also constructed in a unique way so that an abundant amount of natural light comes into the arena during the day.

The arena seats up to 17,600 for gymnastics events, although only 12,500 seats were made publicly available for the gymnastics competition at the 2004 Olympics. It seats up to 18,989 for basketball games, which includes 18,500 regular seats for the fans, 300 seats for the media members, and 189 seats for VIPs.

A large-scale arena renovation was completed in 2004, for the 2004 Summer Olympics. The arena was then renovated again in 2016.

2004 Summer Olympics

The arena was used for artistic gymnastics and trampolining, and also hosted the finals of the basketball matches at the 2004 Summer Olympics. Renovation of the building for the Olympics was completed on 30 June 2004, and it was officially reopened on 10 August 2004, shortly before the beginning of the games.

Basketball use

The Indoor Hall is the regular home court for the Greek Basket League professional basketball club Panathinaikos. It has also been used as the home court for Maroussi, for European-wide league matches.

The arena was used to host the quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals stages of the 1998 FIBA World Championship. It is also the primary home court of the senior Greek National Basketball Team.

On 4 and 6 May 2007, the Indoor Hall hosted the EuroLeague 2006–07 season's Final Four, the semifinals and finals rounds of Europe's principal pro club competition in basketball, which saw hometown favourite Panathinaikos win the title.

On 9 December 2007, FIBA announced that the Olympic Indoor Hall was selected as the host of the 2008 FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. At the qualifying tournament, hosts and favourites Greece, along with the German and Croatian national basketball teams, qualified for the final 2008 Olympic Basketball Tournament.

On 5 April 2018, the Indoor Hall was announced as the venue of the 2018 Basketball Champions League Final Four, during which AEK Athens served as host.

Text imported from Wikipedia article "O.A.C.A. Olympic Indoor Hall" and modified on February 5, 2022 according to the CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license.