Widget shaped track to cost almost 4 million dollars

10K or Bust wrote:

When I saw this post title I wondered what "widget-shaped" means? Any ideas?

Ha, I had the same thought. It has been a while since I took geometry, but I don't think it was a shape that the course covered.

"Widget" is something that referred to a non-descript fictional product in some Economics books, but now might be more associated with certain web-applications (do these have shapes?).

It isn't a terrible description for the title of the thread, but "irregular" would probably have worked just as well or better.

Here a current, unique high school track from NYC. One big curve, two short ones, and three straights:

http://dailytrackpic.com/2014/09/11/murry-bergtraum-high-school-track-new-york-ny/

5 Lane 434 meter college track

www.eastbaypioneers.com/index.aspx?path=mtrack

Travis AFB

I think the track at Brussels has a 75m straight i.e. 39.79m radii

The track I used to run on is a parallelogram shape - sharp turn, wide turn, sharp turn, wide turn. Didn't really notice it when running

http://bit.ly/1JdO6Ix

Ihttp://trackandfieldnews.com/discussion/showthread.php?145324-optical-illusion

The reference relates to Garry Hills thread on T&FNews board.

malmo wrote:

talking when you don't know wrote:

What are you even talking about? Stadion i Stockholm is a complete classic track. And more WRs there than any venue on earth.

What are YOU talkin bout? It's well-known that Stockholm has a double radius turn -- tight corners, wide in the middle - and yes there have been many world records set on it.

It WAS wellknown that Stockholm HAD multi radius turns (as well as just 7 lanes). But things have changed since you ran in the arena many years ago.

The track was completely re-configurated in the early 1990's when the Stadium went through a major renovation.

So for a couple of decades now the Stockholm Stadium has featured an 8-lane track with perfectly semi-circular turns (35 m radius in lane 1). Thus it fully complies with the current IAAF standards and recommendations concerning size and design of the bends.

The Stadium records at 200m - 19.77 by Michael Johnson in 1996 and 21.88 by Allyson Felix in 2009 - also prove that there is nothing awkward with the turns.

Didn't George Jetson make widgets?

neu wrote:

malmo wrote:

What are YOU talkin bout? It's well-known that Stockholm has a double radius turn -- tight corners, wide in the middle - and yes there have been many world records set on it.

It WAS wellknown that Stockholm HAD multi radius turns (as well as just 7 lanes). But things have changed since you ran in the arena many years ago.

The track was completely re-configurated in the early 1990's when the Stadium went through a major renovation.

So for a couple of decades now the Stockholm Stadium has featured an 8-lane track with perfectly semi-circular turns (35 m radius in lane 1). Thus it fully complies with the current IAAF standards and recommendations concerning size and design of the bends.

The Stadium records at 200m - 19.77 by Michael Johnson in 1996 and 21.88 by Allyson Felix in 2009 - also prove that there is nothing awkward with the turns.

I think that you are fabricating things. Take a look at the track now -- it's clearly a double radius turn.

!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x89e30b3bffca94d7:0xa83f61ed8a955e45

The existing track looks long and thin (but with symmetrical turns) compared to 'normal' tracks.

bobby sss wrote:

I workout on this square track.

For speed work I run in lane 3 because the turns are so sharp.

http://dailytrackpic.com/2013/02/13/beverly-hills-high-school-track-beverly-hills-ca/

That is like the old South Bend Riley track from years ago. I'm sure many remember it to be just like this one.

neu wrote:

malmo wrote:

What are YOU talkin bout? It's well-known that Stockholm has a double radius turn -- tight corners, wide in the middle - and yes there have been many world records set on it.

It WAS wellknown that Stockholm HAD multi radius turns (as well as just 7 lanes). But things have changed since you ran in the arena many years ago.

The track was completely re-configurated in the early 1990's when the Stadium went through a major renovation.

So for a couple of decades now the Stockholm Stadium has featured an 8-lane track with perfectly semi-circular turns (35 m radius in lane 1). Thus it fully complies with the current IAAF standards and recommendations concerning size and design of the bends.

The Stadium records at 200m - 19.77 by Michael Johnson in 1996 and 21.88 by Allyson Felix in 2009 - also prove that there is nothing awkward with the turns.

OK. I see what you did there now. You looked at the picture of me running in DN Galen (Stockholm), counted seven lanes, the looked at newer pictures os Stockholm's track, counted eight lanes, then fabricated a narrative how the track was rennovated to get there.

With Stockholms intimate stadium there is/was enough room to take out a superfluous walkway at the bottom row to squeeze in an extra lane, but there ain't no room at the Inn to alter the track geometry to modern standards.

A few years ago during a DN Galen broadcast, either the announcers or an athlete explained the problem of drawing an inside lane. I think it was a 400h or a relay race they were talking about, I can't remember which. Maybe someone else can recall?

malmo wrote:

neu wrote:

It WAS well-known that Stockholm HAD multi radius turns (as well as just 7 lanes). But things have changed since you ran in the arena many years ago.

The track was completely re-configurated in the early 1990's when the Stadium went through a major renovation.

So for a couple of decades now the Stockholm Stadium has featured an 8-lane track with perfectly semi-circular turns (35 m radius in lane 1). Thus it fully complies with the current IAAF standards and recommendations concerning size and design of the bends.

The Stadium records at 200m - 19.77 by Michael Johnson in 1996 and 21.88 by Allyson Felix in 2009 - also prove that there is nothing awkward with the turns.

I think that you are fabricating things. Take a look at the track now -- it's clearly a double radius turn.

Why do you think that I would be fabricating things? I am just stating the basic facts about the main athletics arena in my hometown.

I don't know what pictures of the Stadium you are looking at when you claim to see double radius turns now - because they have as said not been there for over twenty years.

If you check Google Earth carefully you can clearly see that the turns are single radius.

A better quality aerial photo is available at

(click on "Flygfoto" in the upper right hand corner).

The old track had a 27 m radius at the beginning and at the end of the turn and then a 60 m radius in the middle part. That this awkward set-up is no longer the case is immediately obvious from those aerial photos,

What perhaps should be noted is that the finish line is positioned not at the actual beginning of the bend but some five metres into the bend (just like in e.g. Lausanne). But that doesn't mean that the curvature of the bend is anything else than one-radius-circular.

(As you might remember from the old track the finish line was much further into the bend which was quite confusing to many runners. But that was as said a very long time ago.)

You are always welcome to Stockholm to re-visit our Stadium and see and check our current track layout (which dates back to 1993) with your own eyes!

A recent letsrun thread that cited DN Galen broadcast announcers talk about the tight corners

Http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=5981704

I would suggest that the google link you supplied has some distortion to the image. That image does not have a smooth radius but in fact has the inverse of the actual geometry small/big/small radius. That image appears to be big/small/big radius. Even if the image is not a distortion it is still a double radius turn.

You could look at a hundred images of Stockholms track and one hundred kf the will show double radius turns.

Who are we to believe, our own eyes, and a contemporaneous letsrun thread that concurs, or a previously unheard of anonymous poster? Given the overwhelming evidence against your position, it seems that the onus is on you to provide actual documentation that what you say is fact. If it is, in fact, your "home track", as you say, I would think that this would not be an unreasonable request?

I'm sincerely curious if all of this evidence is wrong?

Knowing the school that the OP is referring to, this facility is optimal for the land constraints of the available plot. They used to have a 300m track with limited and sub-par field event areas, so this appears to be a great improvement. The Track will be located at a relatively small catholic school north of Boston, and they will not be hosting any major IAAF events soon.

Texas Tech has a 236m completely circular indoor track.

http://www.texastech.com/facilities/fac-atc.html

The Stockholm Olympic Stadium track was re-certified this year.

It has a single radius=35.00m

Here's a rectangle-shaped track at St. Charles High School in MO, with even sharper corners than the Beverly Hill track track that bobby sss shared. They host meets on this one, and the relay exchanges are right at the corners. Rough!

http://dailytrackpic.com/2013/03/26/st-charles-high-school-track-st-charles-mo/

D.Katz wrote:

The Stockholm Olympic Stadium track was re-certified this year.

It has a single radius=35.00m

I verified that this is the real David Katz, a real person who is someone who is very knowledgeable about these things. He said that he has seen the IAAF cert report, and that the radius is 35m.

Still, that doesn't jibe with any of the photographic images of the track, nor does it reconcile with the broadcast announcers discussion this past year (2014) about the inherent difficulty of the tracks sharp corners.

So what the hey?

Here's the hey:

I looked through more Stockholm photos and I think I uncovered their clever little cheat that allowed them to get that 35m radius within that confined space. Look at the photo I provided and compare it to the current track.. You can see that they took out the front row walkway to make room for the eighth lane. Notice how the lane lines link nice a smooth and follow a 180 degree arc?

Now look at the current "certified" track. Look at those lane lines. They don't connect! They don't connect because they cut short the arc. It's not 180 degrees.

I'm not sure how this is even legal, but the IAAF approved it anyway?