What is "stadion"

n. A Greek unit of measurement, equivalent to six plethra or six hundred podes, which, though varying in precise length, is generally accepted to be equivalent to approximately 185·4 metres.

Stadion or stade was an ancient running event, part of the Ancient Olympic Games and the other Panhellenic Games. It was one of the five major Pentathlon events. It was the premier event of the gymnikos agon (nude competition). From the years 776 to 724 BC, the stadion was the only event that took place at the Olympic Games and the victor gave his name to the entire four-year Olympiad. This allows scholars to know the names of nearly every ancient Olympic stadion winner.

The stadion was named after the building in which it took place, also called the stadion. This word became stadium in Latin, which became the English word stadium. There were other types of running events, but the stadion was the most prestigious; the winner was often considered to be the winner of an entire Games. Though a separate event, the stadion was also part of the ancient Pentathlon.

At the Olympic Games, the Stadion (the actual building) was big enough for twenty competitors, and the race was a 200-yard (about 180-meters) sprint. The original stadion track in Olympia measures approximately 190 meters. The race began with a trumpet blow, with officials (the agonothetai - ἀγωνοθέται) at the starting blocks to make sure there were no false starts. There were also officials at the end to decide on a winner and to make sure no one had cheated. If the officials decided there was a tie, the race would be re-run. Runners started the race from a standing position, probably with their arms stretched out in front of them, instead of starting in a crouch like modern runners. They ran naked on a packed earth track. By the fifth century, the track was marked by a stone-starting line known as the balbis. Advancements in this stone starting block led to it having a set of double grooves (10–12 cm apart) in which the runner placed his toes. The design of these grooves were intended to give the runner leverage for his start.

The winner of the stadion in the first Olympic Games was Coroebus of Elis.

The race gave its name to the unit of length, the Stadion.

Stadion was a statelet of the Holy Roman Empire, located around Thannhausen in the present-day Bavarian administrative region of Swabia, Germany.

The Swabian Stadion dynasty was first mentioned in the area of Oberstadion in the 13th century. John Philipp of Stadion (1652–1741), civil servant of the Mainz archbishops, was elevated to the rank of a Freiherr (Baron) in 1686. In 1705, he acquired the immediate lordship of Thannhausen and thereby was raised to a Reichsgraf. Upon his death in 1741, the estates were partitioned between the lines of Stadion-Thannhausen and Stadion-Warthausen.

Stadion (Greek , Latin stadium, nominative plural stadia in both Greek and Latin) may refer to:

• Stadion (unit), Latinized stadium, an ancient unit of length, formerly anglicized stade
• Stadion (running race), an ancient Greek running event, part of the Olympic Games and other Panhellenic Games, and the name of the building in which it took place
• Stockholms Stadion, stadion in Stockholm, Sweden
  • Stadion metro station, a metro station in Stockholm, Sweden
• Stadion (journal), a multilingual periodical newspaper for the history of sport
• Stadion (state), a county of the Holy Roman Empire
  • Johann Philipp Stadion, Count von Warthausen (1763–1824), Austrian statesman
  • Franz Stadion, Count von Warthausen (1806–1853), Austrian statesman, son of the previous

'Stadion ' is a multilingual academic journal covering the history of sport. The editors-in-chief are Manfred Lämmer, Thierry Terret, and Maureen Smith ( German Sport University Cologne).

Stadion is a station on of the Vienna U-Bahn. It is located in the Leopoldstadt District. It opened in 2008.