For every single Olympic games Mondo puts out the same old tired PR that they've created the "fastest track ever" and it's now 2% faster than the previous one or something like that.
But if you add up all these supposed improvements over the years, the times should have dropped more than 10% since Sydney. That's like a minute and a half in the 5000. Doesn't add up.
It's the same old product, people. Maybe with some minor tweaks and a flashy new color. But they definitely don't have all these mad scientists over at Mondo working on some moonshot product to create the bounciest material ever.
No matter what marginal improvements they make, most of the results will still be determined by the athletes (assuming the track complies with regulations and they don't start making literal bouncy tracks with springs). So these % figures, whilst significant only transfer to one aspect of what goes into the performance. It's like when a 100m sprinter says they've improved by 10% - if they had actually improved 10% in all areas they'd be running 9 seconds flat. Gains are limited
2012 London was really the first super-track but 2016 Rio set the standard for next-gen
We'll never forget that women's 10,000m it was epic, WR and like two dozen national and personal records.
When something takes off a second per lap and you've then got 25 laps, well stuff happens, but not sure how much more room for improvement they've got.
At least it's an even "battlefield" for all compared to the shoes.
The "dynamic connection between the track and a new generation of shoes" is marketing speak for a harder track being tolerable because of super shoe foam, and everyone running faster as a result of being able to impart more force per unit of time into the ground.
Like the famous 1991 tokyo world championships track that was hard as a rock. incredible for sprinting times, horrifying for distance runners and the effect on their legs. resulted in more and more standardization and regulation of the track from barcelona on.
It still sucks for the mid-d and distance, they want and prefer a soft track.
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