The Olympics in Mexico! M68 Olympic Facilities
This photographic exhibition shows the sports facilities that were rehabilitated and built for the XIX Olympiad in Mexico
By Fundación ICA, A.C.
Fundación ICA, A.C.
Introduction
On October 1963, Mexico City requested to be the host of the XIX Olympic Games of 1968 before the International Olympic Committee. With 30 of 58 votes cast, this athletic, political and cultural commitment was a significant milestone in Mexico’s modern history, becoming the first Olympic Games to be hosted in Latin America. The former Ministry of Public Works was in charge of the project, coordinating and building most of the facilities, as well as adapting the existing infrastructure for the occasion. Preliminary studies began in 1965, and an inventory was produced with possible venues that possessed the necessary technical, administrative, and athletic characteristics. Thus, more than half of the competitions took place in buildings adapted to Olympic regulations. Facilities were planned for their future use in areas close to large avenues, such as Insurgentes Avenue or the Periférico beltway, near the Mexican Olympic Sports Centre and Mexico City’s Olympic Village.
University Olympic Stadium
The Ministry summoned engineers, architects, and contractors for a significant challenge: concluding on time for the inauguration, which took place on October 12th, 1968. With the slogan “Mexico 68”, the buildings constructed represented “a new contribution to architecture and construction techniques for the completion of Olympic ideals; the outreach and mutual understanding among the people of the world, which has been the ultimate aspiration of humanity for nearly three millennia.”
Azteca Stadium
Throughout Mexico City, the Mexican Olympic Sports Centre, the Olympic Velodrome, the Sports Palace, the Olympic Pool and Gymnasium, the University Olympic Stadium, the Olympic Village, the Aztec Stadium, and the Rowing and Canoeing Olympic Track, were the main venues, built almost entirely by Mexican architects, engineers and technicians.
Francisco Márquez Olympic Pool and Juan de la Barrera Olympic Gymnasium
Mexico 68 was a milestone in the history of modern Olympic Games with the use of new technologies in sporting competitions, which allowed a higher precision when recording each competitor’s times. Tactile panels were used for swimming, a device that reacted when touched by a swimmer’s hand, thus stopping the chronometer, leaving no margin of error from the judges.
Virgilio Uribe Rowing and Canoeing Olympic Track
5516 athletes, 781 women, and 4735 men, from 112 different countries participated in the Mexico 68 Olympic Games; they disputed among them 172 competitions programmed for these Olympics. In the telecommunications area, Mexico was equipped with new infrastructure, transmitting the first Olympic games in colour.
Mexico Arena
Another pioneering resource employed in the Mexico 68 Olympics was the photographic chronometer; the image captured by the camera at the finish line allowed judges to observe who had crossed it first, recording up to a hundredth of a second between competitors. In terms of facilities, it was also the first time that a synthetic tartan track was used, produced with ash and soil.
National Auditorium and Campo Marte military field
In contrast to the two previous Olympic events, Mexico established different areas of the now-extinct Federal District Department for the XIX Olympic Games. Venues were distributed in the northern and southern regions of the city; thus, there was a plan to extend and open roads, like the southeast extension of the Periferico beltway, the Tlalpan Overpass, and Pedregal Avenue. Insurgentes Sur Avenue was also extended.
Magdalena Mixhuca Sports City
The Velodrome was built on an area of 5.2 acres, within a building of low height and a length of 333.33 metres by 7 metres wide; the circuit’s curves have a 39º cant. It had a capacity of 6800 spectators and 860 parking spaces in 1968. The only element proposed by a foreigner was the design of the track with an African wood known as Doussie Afzeiba, a material with higher resistance to weather conditions, which made the Mexican velodrome an elite facility in its time.
Magdalena Mixhuca Sports City
Many Olympic disciplines gathered along its 92 acres. Some of its facilities were built for the Mexico 68 Olympic Games, whereas others had begun its construction ten years before, after the Sports City project was not concluded and later moved to the Nochebuena neighbourhood.
Niño Artillero Narciso Mendoza Olympic Village
Located to the south of Mexico City, in Coapa, Narciso Mendoza Olympic Village is the second Olympic complex. It was divided into 5 sections that would accommodate referees and judges, cultural centres, press, a military section, and general offices. After the Olympic games were over, the apartments were put on sale.
Friendship Route
The cultural program, alongside budget efficiency, logistics and symbology (graphic identity) created a unique collective project: the Friendship Route, with 19 concrete sculptures designed by artists from all five continents and led by Mathias Goeritz. “A gathering of giants” Station #14 / Country: Netherlands Artist: Joop Beljon.
Olympic Facilities
On October 27th, 1968, the most important athletic competition to ever take place on Mexico soil came to an end. Mexico had received the Olympic torch from Tokyo in 1964 and delivered it to Munich for the 1972 Olympic Games.
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