D esigned for the 1976 Olympic Games, Olympic Stadium was not completed on time due to a strike by construction workers. It took another 2 years before the roof, made from 60,696 square feet of Kevlar weighing 50 tons, became retractable. Problems with opening and closing the roof led to its permanent closure. The new roof does not open.
All messages are in French and English.
The Canadian and American national anthems are sung before each game. The tower is one foot taller than the Washington Monument and is angled at 45 degrees. It is the world's tallest inclined structure. The retractable roof was silver on top and orange on the bottom with 26 white cones that linked the roof to the tower. Retracted like a large umbrella, it took 25 minutes to hoist the roof up or down on its 26 cables and could not be deployed when the wind was greater than 25 miles per hour.