YOUR FORUM FOR PLAY, SPORTS UND LEISURE AREAS
With this new synthetic running track, Bolt and his team colleagues now have at their disposal a Class II, IAAF certified competition track providing optimal training conditions and where competitive athletics meetings can also be held. A team of BSW employees carried out and monitored the installation work - from laying of the sub-ballast structure right up to marking of the lines.
Where previously, training was carried out on grass, an asphalt sub-ballast layer according to IAAF standards, was installed within a very short time to provide a substrate for a Regupol AG synthetic track. With the success of Usain Bolt, during the international athletics world championships on the blue Regupol Tartan track in the Olympia Stadium in Berlin, still fresh in their minds, the UWI University chose a similar blue granulate surface with white lines for their new track. One distinctive feature of this new track is its design structure in the so-called “high-stress areas” – the parts of the track subjected to intensive use by athletes such as the start and take-off areas – were specially modified to withstand the high stressing.
“I love Regupol Tartan tracks” Usain Bolt
Construction of the track is part of an advertising campaign contract between BSW and Usain Bolt, who supports advertising of the sport floorings and tracks from this company. Since his success on the blue Regupol Tartan track in Berlin, Bolt is so convinced by the quality of the Regupol tracks that he immediately agreed to this cooperation. As recognised record times can be run on the new Regupol competition and IAAF certified track in Jamaica, Bolt now has the possibility of further improving his best times run in Berlin. But not only Bolt and his team colleagues from the “Racers Track Club” will be using the track, top athletes from throughout the world gather here for training and competition meetings. With this new high-performance track, the UWI University has taken a large step towards reaching its goal of having the best sports facilities in the Caribbean. As Ulf Pöppel, Managing Director of BSW GmbH, emphasised during the inauguration ceremony, this track will allow the Jamaicans to continue to turn out some of the world’s best sprinters as, for example, Brazil with world-class footballers and the USA with the best basketball players.
Further tracks in planning
Along with Usain Bolt himself and his coach Glen Mills, numerous other personalities from the field of light athletics also attended the inauguration ceremony. The organisation was carried out in close cooperation with Peter Breuer, export manager with BSW, the trainer and manager of Usain Bolt, Grace Jackson, herself Olympia silver medallist at 200 m in Seoul and today responsible for sport management with the UWI University, as well as further Jamaican functionaries. In the words of Peter Breuer, construction of the running track in Jamaica, was a “prestige object for BSW” and the advertising cooperation with Usain Bolt has already generated new orders for BSW.
