As the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25 reaches its halfway point, athletics fans around the world have been thrilled by the world’s best exponents producing outstanding performances.
… and they have been done on the Tokyo National Stadium’s Mondo track.
The highlight of the first four days in the Japanese capital has without doubt been the latest flight into the stratosphere by Swedish pole vault superstar Mond Duplantis.
Duplantis levered himself over 6.30m, his 14th world record, in front of an ecstatic capacity crowd.
Six of his last seven world records have now come on a Mondo track.
In addition to Duplantis’ world record, there have been many other notable marks in Tokyo 25.
The nine-lane National Stadium has 19,900 square metres of Mondo athletics track which converts into approximately 235 tonnes of surfacing product.
It was originally installed in 2019 ahead of the Tokyo Olympic Games, which were originally scheduled for 2020 but took place the following summer due to the pandemic.
The track in Tokyo has acquired many plaudits from competitors at these championships, none more so than Edoardo Scotti.
Scotti reduced his Italian 400m record by no less than three-hundredths-of-a-second to 44.45 in his heat.
"I love this track because it is a Mondo surface, and it is Italian. To set a national record in the heat was necessary to get to the semi-final and it is very special for me because my mother Monica has her birthday today. I think that is the greatest gift I could prepare for her,” said the former European U20 champion over one lap of the track.
Before the nine-day World Athletics Championships conclude on Sunday 21 September, many more athletes will follow in the footsteps of Duplantis and Scotti and go into new territory on the Tokyo National Stadium’s Mondo track.