PARIS (AP) — Followers might be seeing purple on the Olympics when athletes attempt to set data at this summer season’s Paris Video games.
In a transfer away from a extra conventional red-brick clay shade, an Olympic observe goes purple for the primary time.
The items of vulcanized rubber observe had been produced at a manufacturing unit in northern Italy and staff have been laying them down at Stade de France, the nationwide stadium internet hosting observe occasions.
Staff even seemed to be doing an occasion of their very own. Name it observe rolling.
Getting down on their fingers and knees, and with their laborious hats on, they patiently and meticulously unfurl every strip earlier than hammering a nail in to maintain it in place. Greater than 1,000 such rolls might be used for the observe, which requires about one month’s work and a couple of,800 pots of glue in complete.
Three years in the past, three world data and 12 Olympic marks had been set on the red-brick observe in Tokyo.
Mondo has supplied the observe at each Summer season Video games since Montreal in 1976, and the corporate hopes to do even higher in Paris. New technology granules are extra elastic and cohesive, whereas a number of algorithms create a extra optimum form and dimension for the air cells contained in the observe, decreasing vitality loss and thereby bettering efficiency.
Count on extra data to fall on the Stade de France, mentioned Alain Blondel, the sports activities supervisor overseeing athletics occasions on the July 26-Aug. 11 Paris Video games and the Aug. 28-Sept. 8 Paralympics.
“The primary indications are that it is going to be a really, excellent observe,” mentioned Blondel, a former Olympic decathlete. “If we see athletes with private bests on the scoreboard, it means we did a superb job. They are going to come into their finest kind, finest form of their life.”
However why select purple?
“That’s one of many colours of the Video games that we have now (alongside) with, blue (and) inexperienced,” Blondel mentioned. “The rubber itself is an ideal high quality, the highest quality. I’m fairly assured that we’ll have one thing distinctive on this stadium.”
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