Stadion
The stadion, also called the stade was one of the many ancient foot races during the birth of the Olympic games. This race was a big part of the ancient Olympic Games as well as the other Panhellenic Games of that time.
The ancient foot race stadion took its name from the structure wherein this even took place. Incidentally, the building was also 
called the stadion. After centuries have passed, this word evolved into the word “stadium” in the Latin alphabet, and was eventually adapted by the English language as the “stadium”. During this period, there were plenty of other ancient foot races, however, the stadion was the highlight of the event. The winner was perceived by the general public to be the champion of all the games just because of this single victory. This race is said to span 600 feet, which was the entire length of the stadion, and runners were to stop at the end without turning back.
During the ancient Olympic Games, the stadion was sufficiently large. It could house up to twenty athletes without causing crowdedness. This ancient foot race was initiated with the blow of a trumpet. However, because some of the runners were believed to start running a heartbeat before the actual trumpet was sounded, officials stood at the starting line and strictly guarded all the runners. Those who were reported to be cheating were automatically kicked out of the race, and sometimes they were even punished harshly. The starting position for today’s modern track and field athletes is a crouching position, but during that time, the athletes started from a standing position.
In the ancient world, the stadion (plural form: stadia) was also used widely as a unit to measure length. More about this can be read in the ancient Greek weights and measuring systems.
In the German language, the word “Stadion” is still the word used for what we call the stadium in the English language.