MY background is in Track & Field Athletics
In 2014 I was asked to consult with the Italian Mondo company which specialises in making the best synthetic running tracks in the world
It's an area they absolutely dominate - having won the contracts to build the last 7 Olympic Tracks
Their attention to detail is superb & we were getting our regional track produced by the exact crew that lay the last 4 Olympic Tracks
It is a 6 week process & I got to know the team very well so our club took them to Perths top seafood restaurent as a mark of appreciation for what they had done for local sport
The head engineer told us the story of building Beijing's Olympic Track
Mondo gave the Chinese a very good contract rate but in turn Mondo were signed up to build 100 tracks arround China
The primary Mondo team worked on the Olympic Stadium & assigned 2 Mondo engineers to oversee the 1st 10 of their regional tracks
All was going well until Mondo reps noticed work had started on 30 tracks without supervision by Mondo
By the time the Olympic Tracs were finished Mondo sent their top crew to go round the Chinese Copy Mondo tracks to fully diagnose the issue
Apparently the early all Chinese Tracks were utter crap
Legal issues ensued & the Chinese paid a suitable fine but continued to build the balance of the 100 tracks with their own teams - manufacturing the weaved rubber for the track, laying a bitumen compound base that can't warp over time or the track becomes illegal for competition
My friend, the chief engineer from Mondo checked out a few of the latter tracks at the Games
He said after about 30 completed tracks he absolutely could not tell the difference between the genuine Mondo versions & a Chinese copy
I'm not saying buy Chinese but don't underestimate their forging skills or the intellegence behind this type of swindle
All the best
I do love my 2 pair of Kharma interconnects but sadly a bargain $1500 ebay purchase on the 2nd pair tuned out to be fake
Yes there is an audible difference - but only a touch of high end harshness on some female vocalists
Certainly no more than 5% but in a world of purity - it hurts
Matt
In 2014 I was asked to consult with the Italian Mondo company which specialises in making the best synthetic running tracks in the world
It's an area they absolutely dominate - having won the contracts to build the last 7 Olympic Tracks
Their attention to detail is superb & we were getting our regional track produced by the exact crew that lay the last 4 Olympic Tracks
It is a 6 week process & I got to know the team very well so our club took them to Perths top seafood restaurent as a mark of appreciation for what they had done for local sport
The head engineer told us the story of building Beijing's Olympic Track
Mondo gave the Chinese a very good contract rate but in turn Mondo were signed up to build 100 tracks arround China
The primary Mondo team worked on the Olympic Stadium & assigned 2 Mondo engineers to oversee the 1st 10 of their regional tracks
All was going well until Mondo reps noticed work had started on 30 tracks without supervision by Mondo
By the time the Olympic Tracs were finished Mondo sent their top crew to go round the Chinese Copy Mondo tracks to fully diagnose the issue
Apparently the early all Chinese Tracks were utter crap
Legal issues ensued & the Chinese paid a suitable fine but continued to build the balance of the 100 tracks with their own teams - manufacturing the weaved rubber for the track, laying a bitumen compound base that can't warp over time or the track becomes illegal for competition
My friend, the chief engineer from Mondo checked out a few of the latter tracks at the Games
He said after about 30 completed tracks he absolutely could not tell the difference between the genuine Mondo versions & a Chinese copy
I'm not saying buy Chinese but don't underestimate their forging skills or the intellegence behind this type of swindle
All the best
I do love my 2 pair of Kharma interconnects but sadly a bargain $1500 ebay purchase on the 2nd pair tuned out to be fake
Yes there is an audible difference - but only a touch of high end harshness on some female vocalists
Certainly no more than 5% but in a world of purity - it hurts
Matt