What’s the deal with the purple track at the Paris Olympics? It has a secret ingredient

Traditionally, the athletics track in an Olympic stadium is red. However, the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris features a purple track, aligning with the event’s official colors. The color choice for the track was primarily aesthetic, aligning with the competition venues’ palette of purple, blue, and green for this year’s games. The design actually features three distinct colors: lavender for the track, a darker purple for the service areas, and gray for the exterior curves at each end.

However, this isn’t the only unique aspect of the new track. It is made using recycled shells from the fishing industry.

The track design was a collaborative effort between Mondo, the company responsible for its construction, and Nieddittas, an Italian fishing cooperative. Bivalve mollusk shells, such as those from mussels and clams, were sourced from the Mediterranean Sea. These shells are typically discarded as waste. This time around, the shells provided a sustainable source of calcium carbonate, which is perfect for building resilient flooring like running tracks.

Creating running-track flooring traditionally involves mining for calcium carbonate, a process that generates significant carbon emissions and waste. By contrast, using biogenic calcium carbonate from seashells offers an eco-friendly alternative.

First, the waste shells are collected, cleaned, and dried, before being ultimately ground into a fine powder. This powder was shipped to Mondo’s manufacturing facility, where it was transformed into the new track material. The development process took three years, as scientists perfected the technique to ensure the track met the high standards required for Olympic competition.

The new athletics track at the Paris Olympics measures 17,000 square meters and has a lifespan of ten years. This innovation continues Mondo’s legacy of designing Olympic tracks for the past 12 editions. This includes the red track from Tokyo 2020, which was made of 3D rubber granules with a polymer top layer. This track technology allowed athletes to achieve greater speeds, as was the case for Elaine Thompson-Herah’s gold-winning 100-meter race in Tokyo, where she became the second-fastest woman in history.

According to Mondo, producing a track with this material offsets the emissions of a Euro 4 diesel vehicle driving 60,000 kilometers. That certainly is not a lot — not even a drop in the bucket considering the scope of global carbon emissions. However, that would be missing the point. This innovation reflects a broader trend in the sports industry towards reducing its ecological footprint — and that’s especially true of this edition of the Olympics.

The Paris Olympics has set an ambitious target: halving the Games’ carbon footprint compared to previous editions. This means capping emissions at 1.75 million tonnes of CO2, an unprecedented challenge for a global sporting event of this caliber. To achieve this, organizers have implemented a range of strategies, including maximizing the use of existing venues, relying solely on renewable energy, and drastically reducing waste. This also includes what’s perhaps the most vegetarian-friendly (and hence environmentally-friendly) menu

As the Paris Olympics approach, expectations are high for even more records to be broken on this state-of-the-art, eco-friendly track. The track events, starting on August 1, will reveal whether the new material can propel athletes to new heights of speed and performance.

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