The Making of Manchester and Temporary Tracks

Last Updated on November 17, 2012 by Jimson Lee

I thought we had it bad when we bought Mondo rubber and rolled our own tracks.

Temporary tracks are a common thing.

The 1993 Canadian Indoor Nationals at the Skydome, Toronto had a temporary indoor banked track. It was the same venue for the 1993 indoor World Championships.

Even outdoor tracks can be temporary.

The 1996 Atlanta Olympics stadium was a temporary track for today’s Atlanta Braves Baseball team. Look at China’s half-billion dollar Bird’s Nest stadium today!

More recently, Usain Bolt ran a WR 150m outdoor track in Manchester in May 2009.

For those who are interested, building a 150 meter temporary track is not as easy as it looks. You simply can’t roll mondo rubber on hard cement or asphalt like we did back in the late 90’s. No wonder my Achilles hurt!

For the construction, a level wooden platform was laid first, and the entire project took 3 days and 2 nights…

Thanks to time lapse photography, we can see them build this special 150m track for a race that took only 14 seconds! What an ROI!

The winners were the loyal track fans that lined up to see him race in the pouring rain.

This was not the first time they laid this type of temporary track in the UK. The previous October (2008) we saw the Tyne Great North Run on the Newcastle and Gateshead Quaysides.

If you are going to promote Athletics (Track and Field), you have to get the general public interested. Otherwise, they think T&F occurs every 4 years for 16 magical days.

If you can spare 28 seconds, check out these videos on YouTube.

Bupa Great City Games 2009 – Manchester – Sprint Track – Timelapse

UPDATE: Sorry, the video is no longer on YouTube.