How Athens’ Olympic stadium was finally pulled together

Completing the dramatic 18 500 t main stadium roof for the 2004 Athens Olympics was tension engineering in every sense. The 304 m long, 80 m high cable-stayed steel and polycarbonate roof designed by Santiago Calatrava was literally pulled together at the last minute, just as it was on the verge of being abandoned. This paper describes how the two sinuous halves of the roof were built 70 m away from each side of the existing 20-year-old stadium, using a series of strand-jack towers, and then how they were drawn together using a strand-free pulling system devised at the eleventh hour. The final pull was completed on 6 June, just four days before the first test events. It is a timely reminder of the huge challenges that engineers invariably have to overcome in delivering monumental sporting arenas on time.