Olympic Stadium Phnom Penh- Cambodia

The Olympic Stadium or National Sports Complex is a multi-purpose stadium in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It has a capacity of 50,000 seats, but can expand up to 80,000. 

Present

- It's for people doing exercise at the top since early bird and evening , most crowded on Sat and Sun
- It's a place for teenager to gather playing soccer, basketball, etc. around the ground



As of 2007, the stadium has come to be a popular attraction for Phnom Penh residents, who attend daily exercise sessions, as well as football games and other activities.

In May 2007, the Irish singer Ronan Keating performed in concert in the stadium's Indoor Arena, the first concert by a major international act.

In November–December 2007, the World Organization Volleyball for Disabled held its world cup in the stadium's Indoor Arena, the first major international sporting event in Cambodia in more than 40 years. Cambodia, seeded fourth in the world, finished third.

In 2010 the stadium hosted all the football matches for the Cambodian Premier League, known for sponsorship purposes as the Metfone C-League.

Olympic Stadium Phnom Penh

When we visit Phnom Penh one of my favorite places to visit on my own for some peace and solitude is the Olympic Stadium. I have only recently discovered it although I have passed by it a few times without calling in. It interest me on two counts, architecturally, and as an open space and place to observe Cambodians exorcising.

Local people exorcising in the cool of the evening.
It is constructed mainly out of reinforced concrete and the first time I visited was in the morning of a weekday when it was fairly quiet and I could wander around exploring all the buildings and rooms. Wherever I looked I could see how well it was designed to handle large crowds and with thought given to flow of large masses of people. Spaces were filled with water that seemed to me to serve two functions, to stop people accessing areas across the water and also to split up the concrete spaces and give a feeling of space.

Looking across to the main stand and indoor arena.

I also enjoyed looking at the outdoor track and climbing up the seating to stand on the top where I got a fine view of the city. I was able to walk over to the commentators box which hangs over the track and this would be where the official trackside announcer no doubt sat and gave out information on what they saw below.

It looked open and could be accessed by a narrow precarious ladder but my nerve gave out as I was on my own and who knows what the box was currently used for. I could almost guarantee that this being Cambodia, and in the middle of the capital city, somebody would be living in it.

I never feel threatened in Cambodia although I get approached regularly and asked for money , in the indoor arena a fellow living rough asked for a dollar and then went away, without.

But back to observing the residents exorcising. When I went back over the next few days it was apparent that the whole area is used regularly by people who have their set routines. It is popular to walk along the top level of seating, then drop a level, walk and repeat. A man walks backwards and weaves between obstacles; another man walks along the narrow crowd control wall with a drop on one side, of a water filled trench and spiked railings, and the concrete seats on the other.

Every time I go, I will see at least one rat, the structure of the seating seems to have been built to house them whereas if I was the architect I would have purposely designed out all the gaps and the holes which now serve as ideal bolt holes.

Local football match in progress late Sunday afternoon

As I have visited I have built up a picture of the places current use. A large number of local football teams use the grounds for training and there are some 5 aside football pitches including the only pitch I have ever seen with a light pole in the centre; play around it, don’t run into it!!

The indoor arena is the home of the Cambodian Volley ball association, one of the smaller buildings the Cambodian weightlifting association.

Another interesting find was the outdoor, Olympic size, swimming and separate diving pool.

Outdoor swimming pool looking towards diving pool at far end

This is open to the public and we have since been swimming there, it is fairly clean and very refreshing although the changing rooms are untidy and decrepit. Again you can see in the design careful consideration to handling large numbers of athletes (swimmers).Maybe the pool is used early morning when I have never been but I haven’t seen many people swimming there. I had a swim in the diving pool but looking at the diving boards there is really scary; how could you ever dive from that height?

History

Construction on the National Sports Complex started in 1963 and was completed in 1964.Designer Vann Molyvann made use of massive earthworks to create the stadium, digging up 500,000 cubic meters of earth to shape the grounds.

The stadium might have been built to host the 1963 Southeast Asian Peninsular Games, but the games were cancelled due to political problems in Cambodia. There was also the short-lived GANEFO games, that were held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in November 25~December 6, 1966 and were named 'First Asian GANEFO'. The stadium did play host to appearances by visiting dignitaries and state occasions, and was the home of Cambodia's national athletics teams.

The stadium played a small part in the 1966 FIFA World Cup. Unexpectedly, North Korea faced Australia in a qualifier. Because North Korea lacked dipomatic relations with most countries, finding a suitable venue for the match proved difficult, until Head of State Norodom Sihanouk, an ally of Kim Il-sung, said the matches could be held in Phnom Penh. The matches attracted 40,000 fans, with Sihounouk decreeing half would cheer for Australia, while the other half cheered the Koreans. The matches were held on 21 November 1965 and on 24 November 1965 with North Korea winning both (6–1 and 3–1). Because South Korea and all African teams had withdrawn in protests against FIFA, North Korea were thus directly qualified to the final tournament, where they reached the quarter-final.

Among the facilities are Olympic-size pools for swimming and diving and an indoor volley-ball court with a capacity of up to 8,000, now known as the Olympic Stadium Indoor Arena.

During the Khmer Rouge era, the stadium was used as an execution site where officials of the Khmer Republic formerly led by Lon Nol were killed.

In the decades following the Khmer Rouge era, the stadium facilities fell into disrepair. In 2000 the stadium complex was redeveloped by a Taiwanese firm, the Yuanta Group, which refurbished the stadium but also redeveloped parcels of the complex into condominiums and commercial properties.