Oh yeah, it’s faster, I think,” Purrier St. Pierre said. “It’s awesome. It has all the bells and whistles. I’m pretty excited about it.”
(But what would you expect?)
The biggest draw of the facility is the 200-meter track, which New Balance makes no secret in its intentions. “Designed to be the fastest track in the world,” it says on its website.
There are multiple factors to make that happen. During the design process, former Olympian Don Paige worked with the architectural team to bring track experience and knowledge to the table.
The finished product features a track that can hydraulically bank its turns by 12 degrees, and Halliday explained that the way the athlete enters and exits those turns help encourage even greater speed.
“Basically, it’s how the runner is led into the turn and then accelerates through the turn on the other end,” Halliday said. “It’s how you enter and it sort of whips you out the other side. Because it’s more oval-shaped, you’re able to keep that centrifugal force helping to move you along.”
The track surface – produced by Beynon Sports – has a suspension element and makes it feel bouncier for athletes, too, which encourages speed. And Halliday explained there’s a psychological element included as well. A warmup track area – which also features a trainer’s room and hydration stations – allows athletes to prepare properly, get their spikes conditioned on the same surface they’ll race on, and get down to the main track without thinking about anything else than performing.
