Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, hundreds of athletic events have been canceled or postponed, including the 2020 Olympics, which have been postponed until next year. Like everyone else, athletes have had to adhere to strict lockdown rules: no training on the track or in the gym, but at home.
How to build a running track at home and what's the best present you could give an athlete who hasn't been able to train on a track for several weeks?
A piece of track, of course!
And this is what our company did. We paid homage to a selection of Italian athletes in cooperation with Sports Agent Chiara Davini.
Chiara Davini reached out to us during the lockdown to share her creative intuition, knowing our company and reputation: “Mondo listen to athletes’ need”. She pointed out to us that athletes in Italy, as in most of the world, have not been able to train on the track for several weeks. “If athletes cannot go to the track, then a good track must go to the athletes! “With passion and pragmatism, Chiara expresses her love for the sport and innovation. Through her job, she seeks to stimulate athletes under her management to improve on and off the track. Points that brought us together immediately.
Chiara manages to provide her athletes with the resources they require to grow every day. She encourages them to improve not only on the track and on the runway, but to grow professionally as public figures, to continue their study path and to take care of the environment. And it is precisely in sharing this attention for the environment that Chiara Davini and Mondo, whose athletics tracks meet the most rigorous standards required by the Greenguard Gold certification, found the starting point for this collaboration.
We sent tracks to the following athletes:
Each athlete received a piece of Mondo track customized to their home space; since Mondo produces prefabricated tracks, immediately after reopening after the COVID-19 shutdown, we cut our standard rolls (which are about 12/15 linear meters long) into 5–meter pieces, rolled them up, and packed them to be shipped. The product supplied to the athletes was Sportflex SX; It is a professional product which has a thickness of 13.5 mm.
The athletes’ joy at receiving the tracks is visible on their social profiles, and on Mondo You Tube channel are their testimonials.
In particular, for Martina Caironi, who trains in Bologna, the city where pandemic restrictions will stretch beyond May 18th, training on a professional surface is fundamental: her prosthesis has built-in spikes. Being able to train on the Mondo track lets her reduce the impact on her back, thus preventing injuries.
After the pandemic restrictions loosened, some athletes who loved the tracks we provided transported them to their training facilities, placing them on top of the already existing material; see Luca Lai’s testimonial.