Nestled in one of the more expensive neighborhoods in Stockholm is an Olympic stadium. In 1912 Stockholm hosted the Olympics. Sweden was not a large country, Stockholm was not a large city, but the Olympics were held there nonetheless. The stadium that hosted those Olympics is still in use.
In fact, in 1956, Stadion once again hosted the Olympics. Kind of. The equestrian events were held in Stockholm despite the rest of the Olympics being held in Melbourne, Australia. Turns out, Australia’s quarantine laws didn’t lend themselves to competitions involving livestock from around the world. Instead, Stockholm can claim to have hosted two different Olympics. Kind of, again. The event was treated as its own Olympics with opening and closing ceremonies.
Today, Stockholm Stadion is home to one of the local soccer teams, Djurgården. It proudly hosts the DN Gala, a world class track and field event which saw Tyson Gay run a wind-aided 9.79 second 100 meters in 2009. In the winter, the stadium is used for free-style skiing events by trucking in a whole lot of snow early in the season. It even watched as Bruce Springsteen played three concerts in the fall of ‘09.
Stadion isn’t found in most tourist books. Mostly because attending an event is the only way to get in. The stadium is not open to the public on a regular basis, but the romantic architectural style can be appreciated from afar. That being said, if architecture isn’t your thing, there are few things as impressive as watching Bruce Springsteen fumble his way through thanking the crowd in Swedish, or watching world-class sprinters post world-class times, or being smack dab in the middle of a Stockholm soccer derby.
