Articles

Photo: Polytan

POLYTAN TO PROMOTE SUSTAINABILITY

Polytan, Germany’s market leader in artificial sports surfaces, will once again be taking part in the International Trade Fair for Public Space, Sports and Leisure Facilities (FSB) this year, scheduled to run from 26th to 29th October in Cologne. Polytan’s exhibit will be titled “WE MAKE SPORT” and will showcase the company’s entire product range and numerous innovations.

The company’s sustainability strategy will take centre stage at the trade fair. At the last FSB, the focus was on various products made from renewable raw materials, like the 100-percent climate-neutral LigaTurf Cross GTzero. This year, Polytan will go a step further by highlighting its many sustainability activities.

One of the crowning achievements has been the closing of the material cycle at Polytan. Thanks to the founding of sister company FormaTurf, Polytan offers customers a highly sustainable recycling option – almost 100 percent of a synthetic turf pitch can now be recycled and transformed into new products or, in the case of infill sand, washed and reused on other sports surfaces. As a result, Polytan now provides fully recyclable artificial pitches from the start of their lifecycles to the very end: from the research and development stages through to production and installation and finally on to removal and recycling.

Visitors to the Polytan exhibit at FSB will also be introduced to the numerous innovative artificial turf and sports surfaces products in the Polytan brand universe. Here too, sustainability plays a central role as the company continues to steadily develop its Green Technology strategy. Polytan can be found at the Koelnmesse in Hall 10.1, Stand C010/DO11. We look forward to your visit!

Polytan GmbH www.polytan.com

PLAY + OUTDOOR FITNESS EQUIPMENT

The team of PLAYPARC, with more than 50 employees, has been involved in the design and conception of play, recreation and exercise areas in public and private outdoor spaces since 1979. We are proud to design, plan and manufacture our diverse range of play equipment and outdoor fitness facilities in Bad Driburg/East Westphalia, which are tailored to meet all of our customers‘ needs. PLAYPARC offers both individual and standardized solutions.

In the NEOSPIEL® division, we have been selling playground equipment for public spaces, schools and kindergartens since the founding year. The 4FCIRCLE® division deals with sports and exercise equipment for public spaces. Twenty years ago, PLAYPARC was one of the first companies to transform old exercise paths into new outdoor fitness/Calisthenics equipment tailored to the individual needs and requirements of users. We are also currently working in close contact with athletes from the University of Sports in Cologne, getting first-hand input from the Calisthenics scene on what can be improved. Furthermore, we are a committed supporting member of the DCSV (German Calisthenics and Streetlifting Association) and are actively working on planning our equipment in line with demand.

Since 2021, PLAYPARC offers exclusive outdoor furniture under the name URBANPARC®. From parc benches, city benches made of FSC certified wood or recycled plastic, to litter garbage cans, to functional bike racks, bollards or flower pots, URBANPARC® offers everything to make spending time outdoors as pleasant as possible. PLAYPARC is the full-range supplier which individually designs publicly accessible movement and recreation areas.

Photo: Siteco

BOSSARD ARENA IN ZUG

The faster the sport, the better light athletes need to perform at their best. This is exactly what SITECO is now ensuring in the ice hockey stadium in the city of Zug, the Bossard Arena.

The Sirius® floodlight not only illuminates the arena brighter and flicker-free for TV broadcasts, but also impresses with its uniformity and glare control - important criteria on highly reflective ice. The floodlight was mounted on suspensions specially developed by SITECO to compensate for the various roof slopes of the hall.

“Excellent light combined with DMX control for sports and events – with Sirius® we have got the perfect package,“ says project manager René Zulauf from mediapark gmbh, Lyssach. Plus: the reliable operation of Sirius®. After all, the city has had to invest a mid-six-figure sum in maintenance and repair of the old lighting over the past ten years. Times that are now gone. Daniel Wiederkehr, Managing Director of Kunsteisbahn Zug AG, thinks: “SITECO has put our sport in the right light.“

URHEA CAMPUS IN HELSINKI

The Urhea Sports Campus in Helsinki was extended with an additional building in summer 2021, which contains training and competition halls for several Olympic sports. From 14,000 m² total space, 8,000 m² are dedicated to practical sport, which will be used by 10,000 athletes and students that are studying at the connected Sports High-School and/ or living at the residential building “Urhea Home”.

The new National Training Center for Artistic Gymnastics is located in the second basement and was developed by SPIETH Gymnastics GmbH in close cooperation with the Finnish Gymnastics Federation and realized together with the local SPIETH dealer “Kerko Group Oy”.

Within one month 170 m² pit, 187 m³ pit foam and 398 m² Landing Mats had been installed. In total eight truck loads full of SPIETH equipment were transported to Helsinki.

Today the gym is the daily training center for the members of the Finnish Gymnastics National Team and a state of the art example for a modern and efficient gymnastics training center.

Under the flag of the Finnish Olympic Committee, the Urhea Campus is now the most significant sports complex throughout Finland. Within six floors new national training centers have been built for following sports: Artistic Gymnastics, Rhythmic Gymnastics, Track and Field, Judo, Wrestling and Basketball.

Besides conference rooms and offices it also contains a strength training gym, a general training room, physiotherapy facilities and the Helsinki Sports Medical Center.

Photo: Junckers

LONG-TERM PARTNERSHIP WITH FIBA

Junckers has signed a long-term agreement with FIBA, basketball’s global governing body, to serve as Global Supplier of wood flooring until 2024. The announcement by FIBA was signed on 07 September 2021, detailing the multi-event partnership which will encompass FIBA’s elite international competitions in the next three years, including FIBA EuroBasket 2022, FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 and 2024 Paris Olympic Games basketball tournaments.

Junckers will supply its latest generation professional portable sports flooring system Pro Complete 44 for all three competitions. The basketball courts for FIBA EuroBasket 2022 and FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 will be custom-made with the unique branding of each event.

Junckers Portable Sports Flooring made in solid hardwood offers a professional, flexible option for a wide variety of sporting events. The flooring system fully conforms to EN 14904 standard with excellent shock absorption and ball bounce. For international level games, a strong and durable floor is essential and a portable, professional grade sports floor from Junckers offers a sustainable choice as it can be used again and again, ideal as many of the large arenas used for big sporting events are temporary structures. As a onestop service provider, Junckers provides the technical solution from start to finish, including advice on choice of portable floor, installation of the flooring system complete with branded court markings and dismantling the floor once the games have concluded. With the new Global Supplier agreement, Junckers and FIBA continue their partnership following Junckers’ role as Official Court Supplier for FIBA EuroBasket 2017, having also supplied its sports flooring systems for FIBA EuroBasket 2009 as well as for the basketball tournaments at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games.

Junckers Industrier A/S www.junckers.com

WM AUTOPILOT

Assistance systems are where it’s all at these days. So why not get in on the action and equip an ice resurfacing machine with a practical assistance system? Masters of innovation WM ice technics present the cutting-edge WM Autopilot, capable of carrying out end-to-end resurfacing completely on its own. The machine is equipped with a positioning system which allows it to cover the whole ice rink on a predefined route and carry out full, driver-free resurfacing of the rink. And there’s no compromise on efficiency whatsoever – quite the reverse: WM Autopilot is fitted with ultra-precise driving cycles and is also capable of handling non-standard driving patterns such as complex cross-cutting procedures. This leads to considerably less overlap of the work surface and optimal levelling-out of grooves on the ice surface.

The WM Autopilot is a guarantee of accuracy in planning. The time required to resurface the ice can be calculated with pinpoint precision, and the ice is ready for use sooner. And above all, the ice resurfacing operator can use time that would otherwise be spent on routine ice preparation to get on with other tasks.

The WM Autopilot is controlled by a mobile phone app which allows the operator to set all of the most important parameters such as blade depth or water application. These settings can be changed and fine-tuned at any time, even during resurfacing. The operator can select a variety of cleaning configurations, from a quick clean of the ice right through to classic resurfacing. The vehicle then starts to clean the ice independently, and the time remaining until job completion is shown on the display. The innovative Autopilot function is available for the WM Mammoth, WM evo2 and WM Shira ice resurfacers, and these WM models can also be retrofitted with the Autopilot system at any time.

WM ice technics www.wmonice.com

Photo: TatamSport

TATAMSPORT AT 2021 FSB TRADE FAIR

TatamSport presents its latest products at the leading International trade fair for Public Space, Sports and Leisure Facilities (FSB) in Cologne.

In spite of the current situation, and after undertaking a considerable effort to increase its market share, the company will present its wide range of retractable tunnels, dividing curtains for sports halls, crash mats and sports protections and signage for sport facilities at its stand at the FSB, the biggest sports and leisure fair in the world, from the 26th to the 29th of October.

You can find us at the Hall 10.1, stand G-041 and see our products!

Sports equipment that is useful, simple, made from the finest materials and guaranteed to stand up to the most demanding tests by our clients.

TatamSport, is one of the best-known and respected manufacturers of sports equipment in Spain. It offers solutions for sports halls, athletics stadiums and large-scale sports facilities such as ski resorts, as well as highly specific products for elite, performance and unique sports.

WOODEN SPORTS FLOORING

Just like resilient sports floors, wooden floors in gyms wear out from years of stress and the use of sports equipment, get poor slip test values and become unsightly due to sole abrasion, handball resins and damaged playing field markings. But there is another factor with wood: the risk of injury. Over the years, notches can become large cracks that flake off and leave users with scratches or even splinters. A risk that a primary school on the Lower Rhine no longer wanted to bear. In order to guarantee the children safe physical education, the floor had to be renewed. Replacing the 310 m² hall floor would not only have exceeded the budget, but also meant a long downtime. Therefore, it was decided to renovate the floor instead with the Sport Floor System from Dr. Schutz.

At first the surface was thoroughly sanded to remove dirt, old lines and bumps. In the next step, the wooden floor was primed. With the specially developed Floor and Sport Liner from Dr. Schutz, the renovation team then taped all line markings on the floor in order to colour them subsequently with the 2-part PU Line Color range. Thanks to this, all field markings were renewed in record time.

As a last step, the floor was then coated three times with the dedicated Strato 2-part water-based lacquer system for wooden sports floors. The perfectly protected area thus fulfills the DIN 18032 and EN-14904 standards for sports floors, lasts for years and is easy to clean.

The renovation of the entire hall floor only took four days.

Photo: SMG

SMG AT THE 2021 FSB TRADE FAIR

At the leading trade fair FSB 2021 in Cologne, SMG Sportplatzmaschinenbau GmbH once again presents some innovations that allow users in the Track & Turf areas to benefit.

The ClearMatic CM1800, a mobile plant for the treatment, filtration and sludge dewatering of dirty water when cleaning synthetic sports surfaces. The StrukturMatic S130 is a new spraying machine for structured spray coatings, solvent-based, solvent-free and water-based PU-dispersions as well as primer, which replaces the previous model S122 and is available with many new features.

Another new addition to the range is the foldable ball ramp made of aluminum, to measure ball roll and ball bounce for soccer and hockey. The ball ramp is supplemented by the TurfTest TT200, a measuring tool for determining the filling height of infill material in artificial turf.

In the field of towing synthetic turf, the new triangular brush DB1000F was presented, the working width of the DB1000F can be expanded almost infinitely thanks to its ingenious system. The latest SMG patent was presented with the BollerMatic BM1000, a multifunctional platform trolley for tough construction site use. As the market-leading company, SMG has also dealt intensively with the future topic of „Augmented Reality“ (AR), one of the likely most rapid future developments. The deceptively real-looking images of the real machine world of SMG are intended to give the mechanic teams useful information about details of technical components that need to be repaired with digital application scenarios created on the computer. At the booth at FSB, guests are able to experience the first applications live. AR will become the standard in support at SMG and soon also in the entire industry.

SMG Sportplatzmaschinenbau GmbH www.smggmbh.de

AVANT SPORTS AT THE OLYMPIC GAMES

The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games opened smoothly after a year of postponement. Shenzhen Avant Sports’ grandstand seating system made its debut in the Olympic field again after the last Brazil Olympics. There is a long history between the Olympic Games and Avant Sports. As early as 2008, it participated in the Beijing Olympics. By the Rio Olympics in 2016, Avant Sports became the only seat supplier in China, and now it has perfectly delivered the project of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which is the demountable metal grandstand in Yumenoshima Park Archery Field.

On the whole, the demountable metal grandstand system is divided into three parts: east, west and south, which are U-shaped. Among them, the south grandstand is equipped with media seats, reporter seats, photography/rebroadcast platforms, etc. The bottom function room includes a comprehensive control room, lounge, meeting room, bathroom, etc. The system is fully functional. The east and west grandstands are set up with photography/rebroadcast platforms, wheelchair platforms and barrier-free ramps.

The grandstand design is strictly implemented following the Olympic standards. As Japan is located in an earthquake-prone zone, the seismic performance of the grandstands is particularly important. The overall structure of Avant Sports’ demountable metal grandstand is made of high-tension light steel, and the system’s toughness and seismic resistance are far stronger than traditional concrete stands. Even if there is an earthquake, the personal safety of the audience can be guaranteed. In addition to the basic evacuation passages, spiral staircases and standardized barrier-free passages have been added.