Gymnasium at Olympia

The Gymnasium was a building at Olympia (constructed ca. 250 BC) where athletes could train for the competitions at the Olympic games. It lies northwest of the Altis enclosure on flat land next to the Kladeos riverbank. The quadrilateral building has a central courtyard surrounded by colonnades in the Doric order. The west wing is occupied by a series of rooms meant for the athletes, while the east wing had a solid outer wall with an internal double Doric colonnade and another colonnade of sixty columns along the court. The outer bottom part of the wall was made of poros blocks with stone-built buttresses on the exterior; the upper elevation was in baked mudbrick. The building included a court that was used for practicing the javelin and discus, with dimensions identical to the field of competition for those events. The gymnasium is only partially preserved, as the west wing has been eroded away by the Kladeos River.