GREAT FASCIST SPORTS GROUND.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 23, 23 December 1932, Page 6

GREAT FASCIST SPORTS GROUND.

FORO MUSSOLINI OPENED

The principal feature of this year's Armistice celebrations in Rome was the opening of the grandiose Foro Mussolnn, which has been laid out near the I onte Milveo under the wooded slopes of the Monte Mario. Everything has been planned upon a vast scale. Beside the ’main entrance is a gigantic mono] ith of Carrara marble, which bears Mussolini’s name in Roman lettering. The total height of the column from the ground level is about 110 ft, of which nearly one half is taken up by the monolith, itself weighing some 300 tons. The main entrance is through a la.rge double-winc-ed building which is to serve as the Fascist Academy of Physical Education. it will be possible to house and train here 400 students. The Mussolini Stadium, where the opening ceremony was held, is made to seat 20,000 people, and Duly this number must have watched tho picked athletes- of both sexes who gave an exhibition of gymnastics and of he'd sports. A really charming second stsd uim, christened the “Stadium- of the Cypress Trees,” is being prepared alongside. The special characteristic of this second stadium, which will i>o capable of holding 100,000 onlookers, is that it has been built up entirely wiihout masonry. The whole stadium is banked up in turf, and one of tlio , s keen cut out from tho i th J a n t . V anks and overlooks it. With the addition of football grounds and tennis courts, swimming pools and shooting ranges, not yet completed, the boro Mussolini will be one of the finest, if not the finest, sports groun ls in the world.

The celebration, which included the traditional Mass sung in the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli before the Prince of Piedmont, Signor Mussolini, and the principal officers and Ministers of State, concluded with a special illumination of the Castello Sant’ Angelo with 6000 lamps. It is just 102 years since the castle was lit lip on such an elaborate scale.