THIS STORY ORIGINALLY appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.
Traditionally, the athletics track in an Olympic stadium is red. However, at the 2024 Summer Olympics, it’s purple, to match the event colors chosen by the Paris organizing committee. But there’s another difference: It’s made with recycled shells produced by the fishing industry, as part of the 2024 Olympics’ commitment to sustainability.
Resilient flooring, such as running-track flooring, is made using calcium carbonate, which is usually obtained through mining. Instead, the company that designed the track for the 2024 Summer Olympics, Mondo, teamed up with a fisher’s cooperative to gather shells of bivalve mollusks from the Mediterranean Sea, such as mussels and clams, which are rich in the material. The shells would’ve otherwise gone to waste.
The track is functionally the same as a traditional one, with the aim being to consolidate the creation of a new, resilient, sustainable sports flooring.
Stadium staff work on the long jump track inside the Stade de France.Photograph: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images
Mondo teamed up with Nieddittas, an Italian fishing cooperative specializing in mollusks, to get the materials it needed. Its fishers cleaned and dried waste shells from harvested mussels and clams, grounded them into a fine powder, and sent the material to the flooring manufacturer to make the track. The scientists in charge of the project worked on perfecting the technique for three years.
The sports industry can reduce its ecological impact by using seashells this way. Mining of limestone and marble to gather calcium carbonate produces carbon emissions, as well as mining waste. According to Mondo, the construction of a track using biogenic calcium carbonate offsets the emissions of a Euro 4 diesel vehicle driving 60,000 kilometers. “The project serves as a forward-looking example of a long-term commitment to sustainability and local communities,” Nieddittas said in a press release.
A worker inside Mondo’s factory in Alba, Italy, making material for the athletes track for the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games.Photograph: Stefano Guidi/Getty Images
The new athletics track measures 17,000 square meters, cost approximately €3 million, and has a lifespan of 10 years. Mondo has now designed tracks for 12 editions of the Olympic Games in total, including the red one for Tokyo 2020. With each Olympics, the technology of the track material improves.
In Tokyo, the top of the track was composed of 3D rubber granules that worked together with a system of polymers placed on the top layer. With this, athletes were expected to achieve greater speed—and indeed, this was the stage on which the Jamaican track and field athlete Elaine Thompson-Herah won gold in the women’s 100-meter race with a time of 10.61 seconds, becoming the second-fastest woman in history. In total, eight Olympic track records were broken at the 2020 games.
Mondo says it has since further perfected the technology, meaning the Paris track could see even more records fall. But to find out just how fast it is, you’ll have to tune in to the track events, which begin on August 1.
