July 29, 2024
The big part of the job was to come up with a track that was different from what we had seen … to go a little bit outside the box.
Former Olympian and current sports manager for this year’s Olympics, Alain Blondel, discussing the purple race track making news for its historic hue.
Why It Matters: A first in Olympics history, athletes will compete in this year’s Olympic track and field events in Paris on a purple race track. Why purple? It’s one of the three colors (blue, green and purple) used at Parisian sporting venues for this year’s Olympics.
More Context: Mondo, an Italian company that has made Olympic tracks for nearly five decades, used other surprising ingredients for the track … mussel and clam shells once destined for the landfill plus thousands of pots of purple glue. Aesthetics aside, Blondel also spoke to the track’s function saying, “The first indications are that it will be a very, very good track. If we see athletes with personal bests on the scoreboard, it means we did a good job.”
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Why Is the Paris Olympics Running Track Purple? (Smithsonian Magazine)
Image Credit: The Olympic Games
by Aimee Roberts, based in Virginia
