Rekortan M at Riverside Sports Arena, Ayr, Scotland

The most convincing solution for outdoor and indoor use

Ayr, the port town on the Firth of Clyde in southwestern Scotland, attracts tourists with its picturesque sandy beaches, a mild climate favored by the Gulf Stream, and the view across to the Isle of Arran, home to several popular whiskey distilleries. For Scots, Ayr is particularly significant because it was here, in the early 14th century, that the first Scottish parliament convened under Robert Bruce. Today, Ayr is one of the campuses of the “University of the West of Scotland,” which offers one hundred graduate programs across seven faculties. Situated nearby is the Riverside Sports Arena, established in 2022, which is used by university students and also serves as the training center for the Ayr Seaforth Athletic Club. This traditional club has been offering nearly all classic athletics disciplines for over 60 years, complemented by special programs for juniors, seniors, and adaptive sports.After an investment of £8.5 million, the state-of-the-art indoor and outdoor sports facility boasts a sprint and jump hall, a covered grandstand with 250 seats, a locker room pavilion, and a rugby/football field. Specifically catering to track and field athletes, the facility includes a 400m track with eight lanes, an area for jump and throw disciplines, and a 60m indoor track with six lanes. All tracks are surfaced with Polytan's Rekortan M in brick red, our globally recognized professional sports surface, available in both outdoor and indoor versions. Rekortan M impresses professionals and amateur athletes alike with its exceptional acceleration and high step elasticity. Moreover, it is fast and offers excellent shock absorption as well as superior sports medicine properties.Due to country-specific emission limits for indoor environments, Rekortan M Indoor is highly suitable for athletics halls. Compared to the outdoor version, the indoor variant features a construction made from 100% rubber granules.With 153 installations worldwide certified by World Athletics, Rekortan M is the most certified track system globally. Its debut occurred in 1968 at the Olympics in Mexico – since then, Rekortan has represented high-performance tracks at international competitions as well as training and school sports facilities.The Riverside Sports Arena also features our digital performance diagnostics system Polytan SMART, which is equally suitable for tracks and synthetic turf systems. It can be easily integrated into new or existing sports facilities. Once installed, the permanently embedded timing gates are always available for precise time measurements – independent of weather conditions and for multiple athletes simultaneously. For recreational athletes looking to enhance their training, we have developed the free Smart Run by Humotion app for smartphones, which can be downloaded from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. The smartphone is carried in a running belt, allowing the app to utilize the sensors installed in the smartphone to capture all relevant parameters in combination with the SMART timing gates. Evaluation and analysis take place directly within the app. Metrics such as distance, time, step count, and step frequency are displayed both as interim results and absolute values.For professional athletes who wish to train with minimal equipment yet maximum precision, we provide the lightweight 15g DX5.0 sensor. This sensor is attached to a specially designed belt worn on the body. In combination with Polytan SMART timing gates, all parameters are recorded and displayed using either the professional SmarTracks Diagnostics software on a laptop or directly within the Smart Run by Humotion app.A total of 80 timing gates have been installed at the Riverside Sports Arena, covering the circular track, sprint track, and long jump area. Scottish Athletics Ltd., the national governing body for athletics in Scotland, plans to use the Polytan SMART-equipped facility in Ayr for national competitions. Polytan is also an official partner of Scottish Athletics Ltd., which is connected to World Athletics through UK Athletics. Scottish Athletics comprises approximately 150 athletics clubs, offering people of all ages the opportunity to try, train, and compete in various athletics disciplines – from casual jogging to the Olympic Games and the Commonwealth Games.