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The Olympic stadium is an Italian multi-purpose sp...
The Olympic stadium is an Italian multi-purpose sports facility in Rome. It stands at the Foro Italico, on the slopes of Monte Mario, in the north-western sector of the capital.
Conceived in 1927 and originally known as the Cipressi stadium, it was conceived by Enrico Del Debbio and then resumed in 1937 by Luigi Moretti and used as a scenic backdrop for the Fascist period games; abandoned during the war and used as an autoparco by the allied troops, in 1949 it was decided by the CONI, its owner, to be completed by Annibale Vitellozzi, who finished it in 1953; at the time known as the Centomila stadium because of the capacity that was around 100 000 places, it was renamed Olympic stadium after the assignment to Rome of the games of the XVII Olympiad in 1960. It has been hosting since the inauguration on 17 May 1953 , football competitions, athletics and other sports, as well as extra-sports events such as concerts and stage performances.
Since 1953, except for very short interruptions due to renovations, it hosts the internal meetings of the two major professional football teams of the Capital, Lazio and Rome; it also regularly hosts meetings and official competitions in athletics such as the Golden Gala since 1980, the European athletics championships in 1974 and the world championships in 1987.
Since its opening, moreover, it has hosted, even if occasionally, also international meetings of rugby to 15: the debut of such discipline was the final of the Europe Cup 1954 between Italy and France; more recently, in 1995 there was the meeting between Italy and South Africa as the world champion and, since 2012, the adoption as an internal plant of the National for the competitions of the Six Nations rugby tournament, [2] [3] initially chosen provisional, then became definitive after the abandonment by the FIR of the Flaminio stadium.