French tennis is defined by the unique, red, dusty surface on which the sport is played at Roland Garros — the home of the French Open and, this year, the Olympic tournament.

That same brick red is usually found on the track, but in Paris, the Olympic committee decided to switch it up. In an Olympic first, runners compete on a surface marked by two distinct shades of purple: lavender and a blue-ish periwinkle.

Though a playing surface's color may seem inconsequential, it can actually completely change the way the game is played given that the color, in this case, is determined by the material the ground is made of. 

On the latest daily episode of The Podium: An NBC Olympic and Paralympic podcast, titled "Day 12: Red Means Slow, Purple Means Go," some of the members of the United States' tennis and track and field teams discuss exactly how different playing surfaces can affect a match or a race and how they adjust to accommodate those differences.

"[Clay is] a slippery surface. You have to slide it more," said Rajeev Ram, a two-time Olympian and silver medalist in the men's doubles competition in Paris. "You have to kind of just dance. It's a little bit different to move [on] than on hardcourt."

Hear all of that and more on this episode of The Podium.

New episodes of The Podium will be released every day during the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. 

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