New home for Commonwealth Games running track

The running track which turned Hampden from a football stadium into an athletics area during the Glasgow Commonwealth Games is to be moved to Grangemouth.

Usain Bolt runs the final leg of the 4 x 100 relay. Picture: PA

Grangemouth Stadium will receive the running track after Falkirk Community Trust (FCT), the body which runs the venue, applied as part of the Games legacy programme to receive sports equipment and infrastructure after the event.

FCT is also set to receive £30,000 worth of sporting equipment that includes javelins; cones; distance markers; hammers; boxing gloves and many more items as part of the same programme.

Ian Scott, Chairman of Falkirk Community Trust said: “The lasting legacy of the Games will undoubtedly encourage many new participants to a variety of different sports.

“Grangemouth already is a “centre of excellence” when it comes to athletics and other sports - this gift will take it to a whole new level.”

The state of the art track, which hosted star athletes from around the globe including Usain Bolt, cost £600,000 new and is manufactured by Italian company Mondo who have supplied all of the main Olympic tracks since 1992.

It replaces the 20 year old existing track.

The track is being lifted and cleaned prior to delivery and work should start around mid-August to lay it down at its new home and is expected to take around five weeks to complete.

The track had to be removed to allow Hampden Stadium’s refit, making it suitable once again for football matches.

The quest for the track began when sportscotland, aiming to create a lasting legacy from the Commonwealth Games, started asking athletics organisations if they would be interested in buying it.

Falkirk Community Trust quickly submitted a bid to sportscotland telling them the track would be a perfect replacement for its Grangemouth Stadium surface, which was last renewed in 1994 and had fallen below acceptable International Amateur Athletics Federation standards.