From 3 to 5 March, the facility will host the European Indoor Athletics Championships Istanbul 2023.
In December, Mondo had been chosen to provide a new athletics track for the host venue of the 2023 Indoor Athletics Championships in Istanbul: more than 600 athletes will be able to compete on a brand new track at Ataköy Arena.
At the venue, the banked track structure, the athletics track surface and the equipment will all be supplied by Mondo.
Istanbul 2023 European Athletics Championships will take place between 2-5 March; this is the first time that the event has taken place in Turkey although the same venue staged the 2012 World Athletics Indoor Championships.
Mondo’s Sportflex Super X 720 product will replace the existing track, a Mondotrack athletics surface that was installed for latter championships when the Arena was built just over a decade ago, and laid onto the existing portable banked track structure.
More than 6400 sqm of product has been manufactured in Mondo’s factory in its hometown of Alba and sent east to the Turkish city.
The company will also supply all the sport equipment, which will be personalized with the look on the event.
In this video, the phases of removing the old surface and laying the rolls of the new athletics track.
The portable banked track system installed in 2011 has a very special characteristic: the curve is inclined by about 11°. The curve is then made up of 2 distinct radii (18.90m and 15.90m), protected by a removable perimeter safety barrier. With regard to the design details of banked tracks, World Athletics recommends applying a standard curvature radius between 15m and 19m and specifies that the optimal radius is set at 17.20m; therefore, the radius designed for the portable banked track installed in Istanbul was designed specifically for the Ataköy Arena facility by our Technical Department; this demonstrates the high company competence and the expertise that our team can make available for each specific design requirement.
In addition to the European Athletics Indoor Championships, the track will be used frequently in the coming years as the Ataköy Arena hosts approximately a dozen major indoor meetings each year, including a plethora of national championships and international matches.
The Istanbul 2023 European Athletics Indoor Championships will be the start of a thrilling year for athletics major events hosted on Mondo athletics track including, in Europe, the European Throwing Cup in Leiria, Portugal - the week after Istanbul - the European Athletics Team Championships, the European Athletics U23 Championships and the World Athletics Championships planned in Budapest this summer along with the Pan American Games track and field competitions scheduled from October 29 to November 4 in the city of Santiago, Chile.
We can't wait for the athletes to compete on our tracks: good luck to all participants!