Stockholm stadium turns to EPDM for renovating sports track

By Roger Renstrom, Plastics News

Stockholm, Sweden-The City of Stockholm athletics department replaced a stadium's synthetic rubber track and field surfaces in advance of a major international competition in July.

Svenska Sportsbygg AB of Stockholm was awarded a contract worth about $673 000 in an April competition with five other bidders. In 1993, the company handled the last previous renovation at the stadium, which was constructed for the 1912 Olympics. About 25 percent of the project involved earthwork to establish a new base for selected areas.

"We removed all 8000 square meters of the old running track on May 2-3" and then checked the old asphalt's evenness and permeability, said Svenska managing director Johan Stagnebo. The company used 98 tonnes of EPDM rubber in renovating surfaces covering a total of 8200 square meters for the track, long jump runways and throwing ring and shotput areas.

Svenska Sportsbygg purchased Gezoflex EPDM rubber granules from Kraiburg Group's Gezolan AG business in Dagmersellen, Switzerland, and the binder and coating from the Schaffhausen, Switzerland-based Conica Technik unit of Degussa AG's construction chemicals division.

Svenska Sportsbygg workers applied the coating "since this is a difficult craft that takes years of experience," Stagnebo said. A correctly "sprayed surface creates fine open pores that allow the water to work its way in a vertical direction instead of running off the track's surface."

Two asphalt under-layers are 32- and 25-mm thick. The track's base layer of EPDM granules is 11-mm thick. Workers installed the top surface in stages reaching a total layer thickness of 2-3 mm for the mixtures of sprayed coating and EPDM granules.

Svenska Sportsbygg met a 10 July deadline in advance of preliminaries for the DN Galan track and field meet, part of the International Association of Athletics Federation's super grand prix.

"We were lucky to have very good weather during the installation," he said.

Svenska Sportsbygg projects a milestone in 2005. "This year we will install around 150 000 square meters of sport surface, which is a record for our company," Stagnebo said.