The organizers of the popular “street” meeting JBL Jump Fest in Košice are in full preparation mode for the 7th edition on June 15th. While the traditional meetings cannot make big changes the “street” format allows permanent changes and improvements.
After six years, width of the sandpit for jumping events will be reduced by 20 cm and the runway flexibility will be adjusted. The goal is to make it less supple. The revolutionary change awaits the sprint track. It will be elevated up to 50 cm height and it will be 80 meters long and 4 meters wide. All of the sprint events will be extended from the original 60 yards to 60 meters. The spectators, especially in the start area, will have a better view of the athletes, similar to the one in the theater.
Until now, the sprinters were running up hill on Alžbetina Street (the finish was 30 cm higher than the start). The new track will be truly horizontal and the jumping runway as well. The surface will be hard, but at the same time flexible, so you can expect significantly faster times than before. Sprinters and jumpers will be competing on the Mondo surface, top manufacturer among athletics surfaces.
The Košice sprint track will be the second largest “street” sprint track in the world. Right behind the longest one in Boston. “It will be another challenge for us. We have to eliminate up to 31 centimeters of street height indifferences and the slightly soft surface of the original covertan. Therefore, two months before the JBL Jump Fest, the surveyor on Alžbetina Street measured more than 50 semi-descriptive points so that we could prepare it perfectly. The construction itself will require another 250 modules, “said Stanislav Návesňák, the founder of JBL Jump Fest.
Thanks to the support of the Košice Marathon Club, which has been organizing Peace Marathon for almost a century, there will be stands for spectators with a larger number of rows and seats. Young athletes from the organizers athletic club called Atletika Košice will be involved in helping with the preparations for the 99th Peace Marathon in return.
In addition to the mentioned novelties, the athletes will have more space to warm up a few tens of meters from the mini-stadium on Alžbetina Street will grow little warm up area.
So, especially hurdlers and sprinters have a few things to look forward to. Unlike jumpers, there will be more capacity for the sprinters. Registration for JBL Jump Open is running on the American portal Roster Athletics at: https://meets.rosterathletics.com/public/competitions/details/about?id=5018