Tarkett Commercial Makes Appearance at the Olympic

Houston, TX, August 18--To accommodate more than 10,500 Olympic athletes in Athens new athletic facilities and an Olympic Village needed to be constructed before the opening ceremony of the 2004 Summer Olympics, Tarkett Commercial supplied flooring for many of these new facilities. Among the locations using Tarkett Commercial flooring were facilities where basketball, volleyball, beach volleyball, softball, handball, boxing, equestrian, weightlifting, fencing, field hockey, tennis and shooting events will be held. Additionally, areas within the Olympic Village such as the doping control building, the training building, the Naval, Army and Police academies, and athletes’ bedrooms feature the company’s products. While construction on the facilities began slowly, as time progressed, the pace of the work dramatically increased to ensure that the new buildings would be completed in time for the opening ceremony. According to Rolando Canacor, director of Tarkett’s Greek office, “Tarkett flooring products were chosen for their quality, aesthetics and ability to accommodate the needs of the various facilities. The company’s high level of professionalism and ability to cope with extreme situations also made Tarkett an obvious choice.” Three thousand square meters of Tarkett Specialty’s Linosom Linoleum in the Veneto design has been installed in the Nikaia Olympic Weightlifting Hall, and an additional 21,000 square meters of the same product has been laid in the Friendship and Peace stadium within Faliro Coastal Zone Olympic Sports Complex, where the volleyball and basketball competitions will be held. Within the Olympic Stadium area, a total of 18,000 square meters of Veneto and Somplan have been chosen for the Olympic and tennis stadiums. Additionally, those two products have been specified in the Peristeri Boxing Palace, and Veneto is being used in the Olympic Press Center as well as in the form of 20 square inch tiles in the Shooting Ground Palace. “We are honored to have our products specified for such an important installation,” said Gilles de Beaumont, president, Tarkett Commercial in North America. “Being selected for what is arguably the world’s most high profile event reinforces the fact that Tarkett manufactures the highest-quality, most effective flooring products available today.”

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