The best athletes on the planet will compete in the Paris Olympics next summer on a track of purple vulcanized rubber that is manufactured in a factory in northern Italy. The objective of the company which designs it is obvious. Records.
After three world records and 12 Olympic records were recorded on the athletics track at the Tokyo Games three years ago, we can expect other marks to fall this summer at the Stade de France.
This is why Mondo, the company that has supplied the athletics tracks used at the Summer Games since those in Montreal in 1976, went back to the drawing board after Tokyo.
After consulting numerous athletes and carrying out numerous tests, a new generation of granules, which are more elastic and more adhesive, will be used to manufacture the covering of the athletics track which will be installed in Paris.
Numerous algorithms were tested before engineers identified the optimal shape and size of the air cells that would become trapped in the track. These have been designed to minimize energy loss and improve performance.
In other words, these innovations were developed to allow Olympians to run faster, jump higher and even further.
“Athletes will find that this track will be more responsive and better suited to their discipline,” explained Maurizio Stroppiana, vice-president of Mondo’s sports department, during a media tour of the company’s factory in Alba. , near Turin.
This track, produced in sections over two days earlier this week, will be rolled up and transported to France. It will then be installed at the Stade de France next week, weather permitting.
Among the other new features that will be observed in Paris is the color of the athletics track, which will be purple for the first time in the history of the Olympic Games.
“The color was a bold decision by the Organizing Committee,” admitted Stroppiana. We had never added color before. It’s a mix of soft mauve and dark purple. It’s somehow reminiscent of the landscape of France. »
Removable swimming pools
A three-hour drive away is the headquarters of another Italian company supplying essential products to the Summer Olympics, Piscines Myrtha.
Including training facilities, Myrtha will produce 24 pools for swimming, diving, water polo and artistic swimming events in Paris.
Myrtha will provide swimming pools for a sixth edition of the Summer Olympics.
In preparation for the swimming events taking place at La Défense Aréna, Myrtha will install two temporary swimming pools inside the rugby stadium — one for competition, and another for warm-up and training.
The galvanized steel parts will be produced at the Piscines Myrtha factory in Castiglione delle Stiviere, near Verona, and will be transported to France. They will then be fixed together to form the floor and walls of the swimming pools.
“It’s a big advantage [de pouvoir bâtir des piscines démontables]since we can reinstall them elsewhere after the event,” explained the president and director of operations of Piscines Myrtha, Roberto Colletto.
For example, the swimming pools that were used at the 2021 Tokyo Games — where six world records were set in swimming — were reinstalled in preparation for the World Championships in Fukuoka last year, and again at schools a almost everywhere in Japan thereafter.