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Kadriorg Stadium

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Kadriorg Stadium

Kadriorg Stadium (Estonian: Kadrioru staadion) is a multi-purpose stadium in Tallinn, Estonia. Opened in 1926, it is one of the oldest stadiums in Estonia. It serves as the national athletics stadium of Estonia and as the home ground of JK Tallinna Kalev. The stadium holds 5,000. Kadriorg Stadium is located about 2 km east of the city centre in the subdistrict of Kadriorg, near Kadriorg Palace. The address of the stadium is Roheline aas 24, 10150 Tallinn.

Kadriorg has been the national athletics stadium of the nation throughout its entire history and was the home ground of the Estonia national football team from its opening in 1926 until the Soviet occupation of Estonia in 1940, and again after the country's re-independence from 1992 until 2000, after which the team moved to A. Le Coq Arena. Throughout its history, Kadriorg Stadium has at some point been the home ground for nearly all of the top-flight football teams of Tallinn, such as FC Flora, Levadia, Kalev, Nõmme Kalju, TJK Legion and TVMK.

Kadriorg Stadium has hosted the European Athletics U23 Championships in 2015 and 2021, as well as the European Athletics U20 Championships in 2011 and 2021. It was also one of the venues for the 2012 UEFA European U19 Championship.

Kadriorg Stadium was opened on 13 June 1926, eight years after Estonia had become independent. The stadium's opening event was attended by 15,000 people and saw Estonia beat Lithuania 3–1 in football. The stadium complex was designed by German architect Renner and the first wooden grandstand by Estonian architect Karl Burman. Upon completion, the stadium was inaugurated as the country's national stadium and was considered to be the finest of the Baltic states.

Despite its grand look, the 2,500-capacity grandstand quickly proved to be too small to facilitate the growing number of spectators and underwent an expansion in 1934, before an inspection in 1935 found the wooden structure to be in need of immediate repairs as it was in danger of collapsing.

A design competition for a new grandstand was held in the spring of 1936 and the project of Estonian architect Elmar Lohk was chosen, mainly due to his innovative solution to lead the spectators to their seats through passages from the back of the grandstand, unlike the then commonly used approach in Europe that often saw spectators enter the stand from the front. The construction began in late 1936 and was finished in a year, by late 1937.

With its freestanding concrete roof, the new grandstand was believed to be one of the most modern in Europe at the time and was seen as an outstanding achievement in the field of reinforced concrete structures. The stadium was officially re-opened on 15 May 1938 with great celebration by the first president of Estonia Konstantin Päts. The opening event saw Estonia draw 1–1 with RC Strasbourg in front of 8,000 people. A year later, World War II had reached Estonia and the country was occupied by the Soviet Union, after which Kadriorg Stadium was renamed as Dünamo staadion.

During the Soviet occupation, the stadium continued to be one of the primary sports venues of the region and hosted a number of international and Soviet wide athletics competitions, most notably the Soviet Union – USA – West Germany decathlon event in 1974 and the Soviet Union – East Germany athletics competition in 1986. The 1986 event also saw two athletics world records set in Kadriorg, when Yuriy Sedykh set a world record of 86.66 m in hammer throw and Heike Drechsler a world record of 7.45 m in women's long jump.

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