The Paris Olympics Track Is Purple. Thank France's Lavender Fields.

(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Washington Post

Years from now, when photos and videos of a purple track are reshared online, Camille Yvinec hopes people will immediately think of the Paris Olympics.

Yvinec, the associate director of brand identity for the Summer Games, eschewed the typical brick red track for lavender lanes and dark violet service areas. She and other organizers decided to create the first purple track in the Olympics, a venue runners have expressed excitement to compete on when track-and-field events start Thursday.

"We tried to really make something iconic,” Yvinec said.

The Washington Post spoke with Yvinec, the track's manufacturer and material experts about how the eye-catching venue at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, France, came together.

Why is the track purple? - Organizers wanted to build an Olympic track like none that had ever been seen, Yvinec said. For decades, the event's tracks have been red- a color that shields rubber from the damaging effects of ultraviolet rays from the sun- including at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

The Olympic staff in Paris narrowed the color choice to three early last year: blue, green and purple. Each shade represented a landmark of France. Green is the color of the roof of the Palais Garnier, an opera house in Paris. Blue is the signature color of ceramics made by a popular French porcelain manufacturer, the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres. Purple represents the thousands of acres of lavender fields in the South of France.

Blue tracks aren't uncommon in Europe, and a green track wouldn't contrast with the Stade de France's field, Yvinec said. They selected purple.

"The festival of the games is the city itself, the venues, the monuments and so on,” Yvinec said. "We can add that with an unusual color for the track that could go well to create the visual signature and the footprint in people's hearts and minds.”

Has an Olympics ever changed the track color? - The first time a red synthetic track wasn't used in the Olympics was believed to be in 2016, when the Games in Rio de Janeiro used a blue material. It was the backdrop of Jamaican star Usain Bolt's final Olympics and South African sprinter Wayde van Niekerk's world record time in the 400-meter dash.

There are a few purple tracks in North America that reflect their school's colors, including at Kansas State University, West Chester University in Pennsylvania and Western University in London, Ontario.

How was the track made? - Mondo, an Italian flooring company that says it has manufactured every Olympics track since 1976, made the track by adding a violet pigment to the mix. The surface was made with rubber and polymers, materials that boost the track's durability and elasticity, said Maurizio Stroppiana, Mondo's vice president of sports.

In their Alba, Italy, factory, Mondo employees created the track in 1,168 pieces - each shaped similarly to a yoga mat - which they rolled up and shipped to Paris. Between March and June, employees and contractors worked nearly 24 hours per day to replace the stadium's previous blue track, Stroppiana said. While a typical high school track costs about $300,000, Stroppiana said, the Olympics track cost roughly $2 millionincorporating materials that help runners build momentum with each step.

"Our goal is to give to the athletes the best equipment that they can get,” Stroppiana said.

Will the track produce fast times? - Athletes praised the track Mondo made for the Tokyo Olympics, where three track-and-field world records were broken. British Virgin Islands hurdler Kyron McMaster told NPR in 2021 that he felt like his "legs were just turning over. It felt like no surface was there.

Stroppiana said the Paris track has an even more elastic surface that could protect athletes from injuries and give them a greater boost than in Tokyo. The track incorporates air cells designed to absorb the shock of a runner's step. Then, the cells expand to give athletes a small push. Jud Ready, a principal research engineer at Georgia Tech, said the track's materials create a "trampoline effect.”

"As you begin to release your energy [into the track], it returns the energy to you,” Ready said.

While some people might keep their eyes glued to the purple track, Stroppiana said he'll judge its performance by scanning the scoreboard.

"When I see personal bests showing, then I'm very, very satisfied,” he said.

How do athletes feel about the track? - US star Noah Lyles, who's vying for gold medals in the 100 meters, 200 meters and 4x100-meter relay, told The Post in January that the stadium and track were "made for me” because purple is his favorite color. Australian hurdler Michelle Jenneke said on TikTok that she "can't wait” to run on a purple track for the first time. Malaysian sprinter Azeem Fahmi told state media that competing on the purple track is "interesting, motivating, and exciting.”

Other runners kept their compliments simple; US hurdler Grant Holloway told Virginia-based TV station WAVY that he expects running on the track to be "dope.”

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