ALL-WEATHER TRACKS FOR MEXICO OLYMPICS

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31440, 5 August 1967, Page 13

ALL-WEATHER TRACKS FOR MEXICO OLYMPICS

r r HE track and field events at the 1968 Olympic Games, which begin in Mexico City on October 12, will be held on a non-skid all weather surface. This will be a new departure for the Games which have never before been held on an artificial surface of this type.

The tracks for the athletic stadium and for training at the Olympic village, as well as another to be located at the sports unit of Magdalene Mixhuca, will all be covered with an all-weather material to ensure uniformity in any weather conditions. The runways and aprons for field events will also be laid in the allweather material.

Two of the tracks, including the main Olympic oval, will be installed in time for Mexico’s third annual Inter-

national Sports Week in October. Some of the top athletes in the world will compete in that meeting. Jesse Owens, one of the greatest Olympic champions of the century, recently said that composition track surfacing ranked as one of the greatest developments in modern track and field competition.

“In any meet,” Owens said, “runners prefer to run in the inside lane. By the end of the day the normal track is all chewed up. With a composition surface track, you are not running in anyone else’s footsteps. “This is especially important in the approach run for the broad jump, since a composition surface gives every competitor the same consistency of surface from which to take off.”