If you followed the Olympic Games in Paris, you may have noticed that the course looks very different this year.
With its all-purple aesthetic, Paris is a change from the usual dusty red hue that characterizes locations around the world.
However, the colour isn’t the only thing that’s different about the Stade de France track: it could be the fastest Olympic track to date.
The course consists of an environmentally friendly base of ground mussels and clams and a system of air bubbles designed by computer algorithms.
Mondo, the Italian company that built the track, even says the Paris course could be up to two percent faster than the Tokyo 2020 Olympic course.
The colour isn’t the only thing different about the Stade de France track, as it could be the fastest Olympic track to date
Mondo, the company that produced the track, says it performs 2 percent better than the Tokyo 2024 track
The Paris 2024 circuit (left) was built by the same company that created the Tokyo 2020 circuit (right) and features new materials and designs
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The track is built in the Stade de France, the largest stadium in Paris, and serves as the base for all track components.
At first glance it may seem simple, but beneath the purple exterior lies a surprisingly complex construction.
Three different colors of surface material are used: a bright lavender for the court itself, a darker purple for the service areas, and gray for the outer curves at either end.
Even the glue that holds the material to the ground is purple, in case one of the outer layers comes loose.
Mondo used 2,800 pots of purple glue to adhere more than 1,000 sheets of material.
Paris’ new Olympic track boasts a striking purple colour palette, but also hides some technical improvements to make it the fastest track yet
The course was made from over 1,000 rolls of purple material and 2,800 pots of purple glue
Although the colour is striking, it is not the biggest innovation at the Paris circuit.
The company says this year’s track uses an improved version of the polymer material it first developed for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Alessandro Piceli, Mondo’s Research and Development Manager, said: ‘We are focused on the dynamic connection between the court and a new generation of footwear.
‘A new granulate of polymer material, specially made for this purpose, was placed in the Tokyo track. We have now made it even better.’
This development resulted in a vulcanized rubber surface that provides more grip for modern spikes and for the wheelchair tires used during the Paralympic Games.
The surface of the track (pictured) is made of a vulcanized rubber material designed to provide better grip with modern spikes.
Below the surface, the track features a low-density structure of elliptical air pockets that add bounce to an athlete’s steps
Beneath the surface of the Paris track is a low-density structure filled with air bubbles, designed to return more energy with every step.
Mondo says it was “impossible” to design these using traditional methods and instead opted to use computer algorithms to simulate the interaction between runner and track.
According to the company, the result is a track that is softer and more efficient at returning energy to the athlete, hopefully allowing athletes to run faster without injury.
Compared to the Tokyo 2020 course, this new structure should deliver 2.63 percent more “optimized running efficiency” and consume about one percent less energy per step.
During Tokyo 2020, three world records and twelve Olympic records were set in athletics events, including the women’s and men’s 400 metres hurdles and the women’s triple jump.
How much of that lies ahead is unclear, but Mondo hopes the track in Paris will be about two percent faster than the previous Olympics.
The new track has already set one Olympic record and two world records, including the mixed 4 × 400 metre relay and the men’s 10,000 metres.
The circuit in Paris is not only faster, but also more environmentally friendly than all previous circuits.
The trail consists partly of the shells of bivalve molluscs such as mussels and cockles, which are ground into a fine powder.
Since 2021, Mondo has been working with a mussel farming and fishing company called Nieddittas.
Two world records and one Olympic record have already been broken on the track, and with more events to come, there is still room for more records to be broken
Niedditas harvests, cleans and prepares the shells before they are handed over to Mondo, preventing tons of waste from ending up in landfills.
The shells are composed mostly of calcium carbonate, a chemical used in the construction of racetracks that is normally mined from the ground.
By switching to bio-based sources, Mondo claims to be reducing its reliance on mining and cutting carbon emissions equivalent to driving 60,000 km (37,300 miles) in a diesel car.
Of course, this innovation is not cheap: the new track is estimated to have cost between 2 and 3 million euros.
But with a number of athletics finals still to come, many athletes are hoping that their investment will pay off.