There are a couple of approaches to the evaluation of athletic track products to approve these for use in the field.

World Athletics standard approach The common approach is to evaluate samples of the intended product by using a WA suite of tests. Samples are examined for a variety of properties to index

• Overall Thickness

• Absolute Thickness

• Force Reduction

• Vertical Deformation

• Friction (slip resistance)

• Tensile Strength

• Elongation

• Colour

• Drainage

EN 14877:2013 is more onerous assessment primarily because this testing protocol engages durability testing to a higher level than the WA approach. In addition to the WA tests the EN standard adds resistance to wear and spike resistance testing as well as a UV test. All welcome additions to the WA suite of tests.

Increased durability testing
Increasing there is a need to include comprehensive durability testing on track products. Athletics tracks globally do appear to be less durable and problems with early failure/defects and early wear and tare are now commonly observed and reported. The EN goes some way to potentially addressing this issue by subjecting samples to a higher level of scrutiny in the Lab the expected outcome might be more durable products. However, Lab testing does need to be backed up by quality control on-site. Given the nature of track installation with mixing and laying heavily reliant on manual operations, evidencing conformance on-site to the laboratory evaluated systems is becoming more important than ever, something that is not lost on the authorities.