Peking 2008 is the ninth consecutive edition of the Olympic Games that will include the Italian company Mondo among the official suppliers of the event.

From Montreal 1976 to this year’s edition the technical progress made by Gallo d’Alba’s company (located in the Cuneo province in the Piedmont region) has been constant: thus, «Mondotrack Ftx» will make its debut in Peking; it is a futuristic athletics track that performs better than those of the past. Mondotrack Ftx is the result of cooperation between Mondo’s technical staff and Pavia University researchers, coordinated by Professor Mauro Testa. As confirmation that the commitment of the company founded in 1948 to Research and Development is strategic: each year 6% of the company’s investments are in research. Gallo d’Alba’ research and development centre, which has dozens of researchers, coordinates the work of the Group’s other research centres that are in Saragozza, Luxembourg and Montreal.

Compared to the solution proposed at Athens 2004 (the «Sportflex Super X»), the track completed for the Asian games promises even better results in terms of performance and safety for the athletes. To go into detail, the solution developed for Peking 2008 is able to favour and assist foot movement, making it more reactive and reducing “rolling” time; the interval between placing the quintus and the first metatarsus that is the external and internal part of the foot. All this is the merit of Mondo’s research and development work that started with analysing the front and side of the foot’s bio-mechanics while running, in order to ideate a track that is more elastic.

However, this year’s solution is only the latest solution for professional sports ideated by Mondo that in past decades can boast 229 world records broken on its athletic tracks. On 1 June 2008, for example, Usain Bolt established the 100 metre flat world record on a Mondo track, with a time of 9.72 seconds. Each year, circa 150 thousand professional athletes – as well as enthusiasts and amateurs – train and race on Mondo flooring and with Mondo equipment: if we consider the number of people who have used Mondo tracks and equipment at least once, the figure rises to at least 260 million sportsmen/sportswomen. At a global level, there are almost 900 “Made by Mondo” outdoor tracks, of which 340 are in Europe, 182 in Asia (91 in Japan, 52 in Taiwan and 14 in China) and 132 in the United States. Tracks and footboards for athletics produced by Mondo are installed in 164 countries. There are much fewer– although relatively speaking there are still quite a lot – indoor tracks installed all over the world: there are 98 of them, of which 81 are in Europe, 13 in the USA, six in Canada and four in Asia.

Mondo is not, however, only about athletics tracks. From 2002 to the present day, the Italian group has installed circa one thousand football pitches in synthetic turf in Italy and abroad. Also, outside of the sports sector, the Italian company successfully operates in the industrial sector of high quality commercial and industrial flooring. The company has references of the highest order: the underground railways in Paris, Brussels, Berlin, London, New York, Washington, and Atlanta; the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris; the Italian, French, Swiss, Belgian, British, Spanish and German high speed trains; the European Parliament in Strasburg; the national Library in Paris and the Vatican Library.