Olympic Games
Venues-Soccer
Shenyang Olympic Stadium
Last Updated: Friday, August 7, 2009 | 1:57 PM ET
Bernice Chan CBC Sports
The Shenyang Olympic Sports Center is seen during construction in Shenyang, in China's northeast Liaoning province Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2007. The center will host soccer matches at the 2008 Olympic Games. (AP Photo/Color China Photo)Shenyang is the capital of Liaoning Province in northeast China, near Russia.
It has played a role in history and was also known as Mukden from the 1600s to the 1930s, at times occupied by the Russians and Japanese.
Today the city of more than seven million is an industrial base for heavy industry, such as aerospace, machine tools, heavy equipment, defense, automotive and electronics.
The place is also famous for its football fanatics, which is probably why Shenyang was chosen as one of the co-host cities of the football preliminaries for the Games in August.
To prepare for the event, the city built the Shenyang Olympic Stadium, which was completed last June.
From the outside, it looks like a giant, shiny, silver dome with a roof parted in the middle to reveal what’s inside. The dome is made of polymer sheets strong enough to withstand heavy rains and snowfall.
Inside, the stadium features a multi-purpose venue, complete with a pitch, a track around it, with 60,000 seats and VIP lounges. If you’re sitting in the nosebleed section, there are two large display screens at each end to catch all the action.
The turf is rugged enough to withstand the cold temperatures of winter and should hold up well during the heavy play the field will get when the Games begin.
