Paris 2024: The Stade de France is preparing a purple-track treatment for the athletes
Eight men are busy on a turn of the Stade de France on Tuesday 9 April.
It's not yet the 400m hurdles Olympic final, which will happen there exactly four months later, but another kind of race that is going on in Saint-Denis: the installation of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 athletics track.
108 days before the Opening Ceremony, the opposite straight line and one turn are already done.
“We're on time, we're following the schedule as planned. The installation is weather-dependent but it's going well, even if it's raining a lot,” explains Alain Blondel, sports manager in charge of athletics for Paris 2024.
This installation is, with the drawing of the track lines, one of the last stages of the works that will conclude at the end of May. The Paris 2024 Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games will then get the keys to the Stade de France on 1 June.
So let's take a look at all the activity taking place right now at the Stade de France, in order to make the Olympic Games Paris 2024 an experience like no other.
“A different track keeps with the creative approach of the Organising Committee”
So why is the athletics track of the Stade de France purple for the Olympic Games Paris 2024?
This question has been asked a few times of Blondel when media organisations have had the opportunity to visit the biggest stadium in France and see its renovation.
“The big part of the job was to come up with a track that was different from what we had seen, to maintain the creative approach that the Organising Committee has had since it was set up, to go a little bit outside the box,” he explained, before elaborating on the choice of this shade as reminiscent of lavender.
“The look of the Games includes three colours for all the competition venues: blue, green and purple. We decided on this purple track with different tones: lighter for the track, darker for the service areas, and grey for the turns at the end of the bend, reminding of the ash-coloured tracks that were there 100 years ago for the Olympic Games Paris 1924.”
The result is striking.
The colour of the lanes already in place stand out from the grey of the spectator seating, which are waiting to be filled by thousands of fans. Even from outside the Stadium the track attracts the eye, where a footbridge overlooks the Stade Annexe, a training facility where a test showed a good “for the eye and for the picture”.
This purple colour, never seen before for an athletics track, has been the result of a long process but it doesn't have to be just beautiful.
“We had to work hard on the colours, so that they came out in the best possible tones to highlight the athletes. It's a track, it has to be pretty, but above all it's a stage on which the athletes are going to perform. What's really important is that the colours and the athletes stand out,” said Blondel, a former European decathlon champion.
The stage of the Stade de France has experienced a few modifications before the Olympic Games Paris 2024 begins.
Some events have been moved from one side to another in comparison with its former athletics configuration.
For example, a ninth lane has been added and a central sandpit has been created for long jump and triple jump. Usually, there are two lanes and one sandpit at each end of them. This time, there is also one in the middle, where the finals will happen in an unprecedented setting at Olympic level.
“We've had to position this jump in the middle and we're going to try to make it a highlight. When athletes jump there, all the spectators will be able to see them in the best possible way. For the athletes, there will be a really visible runway, so they'll have the impression of being in a corridor to run.”
It could be one detail among many that help athletes break records on the biggest stage of all.
At the Stade de France, results are hiding in the details
The Stade de France is a massive venue!
During each session of the Olympic Games Paris 2024, 74,000 fans will gather there. The stadium is so big that its roof is visible from kilometers away. So it's no coincidence some of the scales look crazy when the renovation is put in comparative numbers.
Two giant screens have been added for the Olympic Games with each of them approximately the size of a tennis court. The lighting has also been improved with 650 new lights added to highlight the excitement of the crowd this summer.
Guaranteeing ideal conditions for the athletes requires millimetre accuracy and detailed, expert knowledge, with a specialist laboratory called in during structural work to ensure the first two layers of asphalt were properly laid. Accuracy is key, with a certain level of flatness required in the quest for perfection, just one example.
A few weeks of work are planned next to install between 13,000 and 14,000 m2 of track. No less than 2,800 pots of glue will be used, and, with no stone left unturned, the glue is the same colour as the track: purple.
At the Stade de France, the taste of the Olympic Games is starting to be feel a little bit more real with little more than 100 days to go until the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad Paris.