Paris Olympics’ purple track is made with crushed mussel and clam shells

The race track inside the Stade De France in Paris on May 7, 2024. The city is hosting the XXXIII Olympic Summer Games, from July 26 to August 11.
Richard Heathcote/Getty Images

Viewers tuning in to watch the fastest runners in the world compete at the 2024 Olympic Summer Games in Paris may notice an unusual color. The athletic track at the Stade de France in Paris boasts a purple hue that is a few spokes of the color wheel away from the rusty or brick red tracks used in previous Games. 

The track will see action from July 26 until August 11 and was made by Italian manufacturer Mondo. This is the same company that has built the track at every Summer Games since the 1976 Summer Olympic Games in Montreal. 

A shelly track

The 2024 track itself uses some materials found in nature, which aligns with the International Olympic Committee’s goal of hosting the most sustainable Summer Games possible. It incorporates bivalve mollusk shells, like the ones from clams and mussels, that are typically found in the Mediterranean Sea. The shells are chock full of calcium carbonate, which is often used in resilient flooring. Nieddittas–an Italian cooperation of fishers–produces, cleans, and prepares the shells that Mondo then grounds them into powder to use in athletic tracks.

According to Mondo, this partnership has created an eco-sustainable supply chain that takes waste and turns it into a resource. Mondo says that building an athletics track with biogenic carbonate offsets the emissions of a Euro 4 diesel car traveling over 37,000 miles and keeps waste out of landfills.

[Related: Ancient, surprisingly well-preserved purple dye uncovered in Greece.]

“This gives birth to a new generation of resilient and sustainable sports flooring surfaces made with a bio-inspired approach that transfers biological knowledge and principles to flooring design,” the company writes in a press release.

However, the bivalve shells are not what is giving the track this regal hue. Purple was selected by the organizers of the Paris Games.

“That’s one of the colors of the Games that we have (along) with, blue (and) green,” Paris 2024 sports manager Alain Blondel told the Associated Press. “The rubber itself is a perfect quality, the best quality. I’m pretty confident that we will have something exceptional in this stadium.”

Peak performance

During the 2020 Tokyo Games, Mondo’s red-brick track, advances in training, and new super-spike shoes worn by the runners all contributed to the numerous records that fell, including Sydney McLaughlin’s 51.46 second dash for gold in the 400 meter hurdles.

[Related: The surprising strategy behind running the fastest marathon.]

This new track actually made its debut at the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary. Early indications from runners and Olympic organizers are that it will be a fast track that “feels like a jewel.” Along with this unique color, the track boasts some brand new materials to help runners. 

“We are focusing on the dynamic connection between the track and a new generation of shoes,”

Mondo research and development manager Alessandro Piceli told The Guardian. “For the track, we only see the aesthetics, but there is great work that goes into the underlayer. A new granule of polymeric material, made especially for it, was inserted in the Tokyo track. We have made it even better now. We have chemists, engineers and physicists who take care of the performance of the material.”

These newer tracks are generally more elastic and cohesive. Multiple algorithms are used to create a more optimal shape and dimension for the air cells inside of the track. This reduces energy loss and should improve performance, but only time will tell what records will fall on Paris’ purple track. 

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