Rekortan M at the Estádio Municipal do Fontelo, Viseu, Portugal
Professional sports surface guarantees record-breaking performance
Viseu is located in the north of Portugal, around 140 km from the port city of Porto. During ancient times and in the Middle Ages, Porto was an important hub for a succession of Mediterranean peoples: Romans, Suebi, Visigoths and Moors all made their mark on the city, until it was ultimately claimed by the newly founded Kingdom of Portugal in 1139. Today, around 400,000 people live in the city and its surrounding suburbs; 100,000 of them in the city itself.
Sport has always been a big deal in Viseu; the city has brought forth numerous famous athletes, such as long-distance runner Carlos Lopes, Portugal’s first ever Olympic gold medallist. Locally born football referee Catarina Isabel Ferreira Campos attracted international attention in January 2023, when she drew the first white card in football history, which was introduced in Portugal to reward fair play.
The Estádio do Fontelo – a football stadium with an adjoining athletics facility – was opened in 1928, making it one of the oldest stadiums in Portugal. There, the Académico de Viseu FC plays its matches in front of 12,000 spectators. Patron Dietmar Hopp from football club TSG Hoffenheim also uses the Portuguese club as an academy to acclimate young Brazilian players at the Académico de Viseu to European football and level their path into the Bundesliga.
The club not only practises football, but also other sports too, such as handball, swimming, athletics and sport fishing. The track-and-field athletes use the stadium’s running circuit, which was surfaced with Tartan during renovations in 1991. Together with our Portuguese partner Mota-Engil ATIV, we resurfaced the running circuit with Polytan Rekortan M in brick red in 2022. This water-impermeable professional surface has always been good for setting records. Its name is a combination of “Rekord” and “Tartan”. The main features of Rekortan are its outstanding acceleration and high tread elasticity. What’s more, it is fast and offers high cushioning and exceptional sport medical properties. The poured in-situ surface, in which the granules are sprinkled with a visible tip, is highly compatible with spikes.
Rekortan M is the ideal surface for competitive running tracks in athletics stadiums and school sports facilities. In Viseu, it is not only installed on the eight-lane running track, which has two additional lanes in the sprinting track section, but also in each of the sections for the conventional jumping and throwing disciplines. Water pits are embedded in certain areas of the track for the steeplechase. With this track, we are confident that Polytan has done its part to ensure that Viseu will keep up its record-breaking performance.
