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Ellie

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Of the 503 gold medals on offer at the Paralympics, 318 will come either at the Olympic Stadium or the Aquatics Centre. 

And where those golds go the world records are bound to follow.

During the Olympics, the venues were repeatedly talked about as fast by all and sundry. Four athletics records were broken on the track while nine new best times were set in the pool - all the more impressive with the former high-tech swim suits now a thing of the past.

That trend has gone through the roof since the start of the Paralympics as the records have continued to tumble on a daily basis.

By the end of play on Sunday, world records had been broken in 110 different events and classifications by the end of Sunday - sometimes by more than one athlete, or on more than one occasion.

In the morning session at the Aquatics Centre on Monday, a further eight new world records were set.

But what is it that can make a pool or a running track, in the case of London which was dubbed 'The Magic Carpet', particularly fast?

The track inside the Olympic Stadium was laid by Italian company Mondo at a cost of a £1m. The same company has laid the Olympic athletics surfaces since 1976 but, in London, it came with a difference.

For the sprinters, it clearly produces world-class performances - T42 200m runner Richard Whitehead

Like in Beijing, two layers of rubber were used, one to ensure athletes avoid slipping and enjoy the best traction possible, while a cushion layer beneath ensures shock absorption.

But, unlike in China, a new tweak was made to the hexagonal honeycomb cells laid down in London to get the best backing to any sideways movement of the foot, giving what Mondo project manager Joe Hoekstra described as "higher energy return and more control and comfort".

"Since Beijing, we realised we needed to make the material more reactive sideways, as well as forwards and backwards," he explained. "We saw that sometimes the little toe touches first and there is a rollover. We have previously provided shock absorption and reaction in the straight line and we have been working on a material that is omnidirectional."

The track plays to the strengths of the sprinters, according to Richard Whitehead, who broke his own world record in winning the T42 200m final on the surface.

"A lot of the middle-distance runners struggled on it as it's pretty hard but, for the sprinters, it clearly produces world-class performances," said Whitehead. "So the track, will have a big role to play in records but the crowd also."

The roof also plays a double role in achieving this. With a partial roof at its edges, that optimises the wind tunnel effect on the track while also helping to encapsulate the roars of 80,000 people inside the stadium for each and every session.

The pool is a different matter altogether but its design seems to have had an effect on the speed the swimmers travel through the water. 

At last year's athletics World Championships there were just two world records compared to the nine broken at the 2012 Olympics.

A turbulent pool makes it almost impossible to really go fast - Olympic swimmer Missy Franklin

At the Aquatics Centre everything is aimed at making the pool as fast as possible. For starters, at three metres it is a deep pool, meaning that the waves only bounce back off the bottom of the pool after the swimmers have passed thus not slowing them down.

In addition, the pool's gutters are designed to create minimal backwash and thus as flat and as fast waters as possible, which is further aided by the pool being wide (in London it was 10 lanes wide of which the outer lanes were unused.

Temperature is also key with the dream figure for London being 26 degrees, colder than your local pool as cooler water (to a certain degree) is faster water as it is easier to push through.

As American swimmer Missy Franklin said before the Games, "a turbulent pool makes it almost impossible to really go fast".

The result is that the swimmers are creating history not waves at London 2012.

By Matt Majendie

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