Fits everywhere

MOST of the ATHLETICS FACILITIES FOR MAJOR INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONS ARE BUILT IN STADIUMS, but SOMETIMES OUTSIDE AS WELL.

Athle­tics faci­li­ties offer suitable running tracks and sports surfaces for all the various disci­plines of athle­tics. The core of each faci­lity is the athle­tics running track. It encir­cles the pitch area in the stadium. In addi­tion, there are indi­vi­dual faci­li­ties in the stadium for the other disci­plines  – such as jumping, thro­wing and shot put.

Is the athletics track really 400 m long?

It is always said that the track is 400 meters long. This is correct, but it only applies to the inside lane of the track. All other lanes are longer. The outer lane is 40 to 50 meters longer than the inner lane. On lane two, the diffe­rence is almost eight meters. With a lane width of 122 cm, the lanes differ by 2 x Pi x 122 cm = 7.67 meters.

Ther­e­fore, at compe­ti­tions, the athletes’ starting blocks are placed at diffe­rent loca­tions so that all runners have exactly 400 meters of track ahead of them.

Why do people actually run to the left?

It is believed that the origin of this goes back more than 200 years. In England, the first horse races were not held in stadiums, but on country roads. Because of the left-hand traffic in England, it was safer to let the horses run to the left so that they would not collide with onco­ming traffic. 

Athletics facilities: Type A, B and C

The cons­truc­tion of outdoor athle­tics faci­li­ties is regu­lated in DIN 18035–1:2003–02, Part 1 “Sports grounds; outdoor faci­li­ties for games and athle­tics, plan­ning and dimen­sions”. Among other things, the DIN stan­dard distin­gu­ishes between running track types A, B and C. Depen­ding on how the faci­lity is used, it still requires an addi­tional World Athle­tics Class 1 or Class 2 certi­fi­cate.

For national and inter­na­tional athle­tics compe­ti­tions, a type A compe­ti­tion faci­lity is required. For regional and other major sporting events, type B is suffi­cient. For all other faci­li­ties that are not intended for high-perfor­mance sports (for example, for school level sports), type C is suffi­cient.

To host national and inter­na­tional track and field events, a Type A faci­lity requires World Athle­tics Class 2 certi­fi­ca­tion. This faci­lity has eight indi­vi­dual running tracks. Its length is at least 176.91 m, and its width is at least 93.08 m. The pitch in the center of the stadium must have an area of 109 x 73 m to meet the foot­ball field  stan­dard size of 105 m × 68 m.

In addi­tion, Type A has indi­vi­dual running tracks for sprin­ting, hurdles and stee­ple­chase, faci­li­ties for high jump and pole vault, long jump and triple jump, discus and hammer throw, javelin throw and shot put.

Weltklasse Zurich
Special running tracks for special events

Some­times you need special running tracks and formats for special events – like for “Welt­klasse Zürich”, the last global athle­tics high­light of the 2022 season.

Welt­klasse Zürich was also the finale of the Wanda Diamond League, the most important global athle­tics event after the World Cham­pi­on­ships in Eugene and the Euro­pean Cham­pi­on­ships in Munich. Athletes achieved the follo­wing: 4 annual world best times, 6 meeting records, 1 Diamond League record, 16 season bests and 9 personal bests. 

The particularly big challenge on Sechseläutenplatz was that the track had to be removed smoothly and without residue right after the event. 

Six of the 32 compe­ti­tions (women’s and men’s 5,000m final, women’s pole vault and men’s high jump, women’s and men’s shot put) were moved from the stadium to down­town Zurich.

The parti­cu­larly big chall­enge on Sech­se­läu­ten­platz was that Conica’s usual process tech­nique – casting/pouring in place the running track surface – could not be used because the track had to be removed smoothly and without residue right after the event. 

For this reason, Conica used a spray-coated running track pre-produced on mats, which were then rolled out and fixed onto the Sech­se­läu­ten­platz pave­ment.  For the tight turns, speci­ally made inclined curve ramps  based on indoor faci­li­ties were produced, which offered the athletes optimal condi­tions for the best compe­ti­tion expe­ri­ence in the middle of the city.