Innovation And Game Of Olympic Footwear

Editor's note: the Beijing Olympic Games are attracting the attention of the international media, including the innovation and competition of international brands in the field of Olympic products.

Recently, some well-known foreign media have made a deep report on the R & D and production of Olympic shoes.

At a base in Germany, Adidas's 6 designers have been exploring professional sports shoes for badminton, fencing and other twenty sports in recent years.

They face many challenges, such as rowing players can not slide along the boat, wrestlers can not loosen their shoelaces, and perhaps most importantly, athletes should not sweat too much on their feet.

At the other end of the world, in Nike, Oregon, the headquarters of the company is doing similar work. The buildings are named after Olympic athletes.

Nike has launched specialized sports shoes for the 28 official events of this year's Olympic Games, and the company has only 11 sports shoes designed for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, which also makes it slightly better than Adidas. The latter will supply 27 kinds of professional sports shoes (except for equestrian sports shoes).

As China is the most important growth market for the two companies, with more than 1 billion feet, the two companies have been competing fiercely for the leading position in the market.

They all hope to display their shoemaking skills and create brand sensation during the Olympic Games, even though they will not sell many archery shoes or weightlifting shoes at last.

As an official sporting goods sponsor of the Olympic Games, Adidas likes to show its historical origins with the Olympic Games. In 1928, the company began to provide clothing equipment for athletes participating in the Amsterdam Olympic Games.

Adidas is expected to provide sports shoes for more than 3000 of the 10500 Olympians.

Consumers will be able to try some Olympic sports shoes at Adidas's stores. All sports shoes will be sold on Adidas's website.

Nike said the company will provide sports shoes for thousands of athletes.

Nike did not plan to launch a large-scale Olympic sports shoes publicity campaign, but said consumers would be able to buy professional sports shoes in nike.com and some retail stores later this month.

The company has begun selling its redesigned basketball shoes and running shoes in China.

Smaller footwear businesses such as MIZUNO Mizuno and A sics, Puma in Germany (Puma) and Adidas's Reebok (Reebok) subsidiaries are also competing to promote their Olympic qualifications, providing sports shoes for athletes, ranging from volleyball shoes to track and field shoes.

The following are some of the sneakers designed by Adidas and Nike for the Olympic Games.

Table tennis shoes

Considering the Chinese people's love for table tennis, table tennis shoes are especially important.

Klaus Thomkyek, director of Adidas table tennis shoes project (Klaus Tomczak), said that Adidas's design guarantees the lightweight shoes, allowing the athletes to move freely, and at the same time, it can help athletes guarantee their stability after fierce competition.

Otherwise, the athlete's Achilles tendon is in trouble.

Adidas uses an exceptionally strong Fustal football shoe sole (Fustal is a popular indoor soccer game in South America, highly confrontational), and adds cushions and ultra light top made of synthetic mesh material to enhance the permeability of shoes.

Nike's sports shoes designed for this project's "close relatives" badminton are made of LunarLite foam, which is 26% lighter than ordinary foam and can be used to cushion the impact of sports.

Equestrian shoes

Sean Macdowe, director of footwear products at Nike Olympic Games, said that when Nike decided to design a new boot for the rider, it was realized that in the second half of nineteenth Century, the boots had hardly changed in the Sean Mc.

He said that equestrian athletes had learned to endure extremely uncomfortable riding boots.

The traditional riding boots made of heavy leather are usually very airtight, requiring two people to spend 20 minutes to dress up the players.

The design of Nike's zipper can be easily worn out of riding boots.

As for the "very inconvenient" traditional spurs, Mr. Mcdowell said that Nike inspired from the track shoe pin seat and designed a similar spurs disassembly system for the boot.

Boxing shoes

Adidas's boxing shoes use the bird's nest structure mesh design to ensure that athletes will not be allowed to move flexibly because of their wet feet.

Mr. Thomke Hayekk, 42, warned that if it was raining outside, don't wear such a pair of shoes full of small holes: you might wet your feet.

Basketball shoes

Weight is a big problem when designing basketball shoes.

Mr. Mcdowell said that the "Flywire" technology adopted by Nike replaced the bulky supporting material in the upper half of the traditional running shoes with high-tech super light fibers. Its support to the feet is like the support of the sling to the modern bridge.

In this sneaker, Nike also uses Lunar foam.

Wrestling shoes

Mr. Thomke Hayekk said that the main challenge of the design of this sneaker is that it should be smooth enough to escape the opponent's grab, but also has enough grip.

The vamp of Adidas wrestling is narrower and looks like socks.

Just as important is that there is a zipper on the shoelace of the Wrestling Shoe and a protective strap on the zipper.

In past Games, some wrestlers would try to untie their shoelaces if they found they might lose.

According to the rules of wrestling, when the shoelace of a player is untied, the two sides usually have to go back to the original position.

Weightlifting shoes

For decades, the heels of weightlifting shoes are supported by wooden supports.

Adidas designed a synthetic material stronger and lighter than wood, and then showed it to the weightlifters. They said they still liked wooden heels.

Mr. Thomke Hayekk said that this is purely a psychological factor, and wooden heels can bring confidence to them.

The heels of Adidas's new weightlifting shoes retain large chunks of wood.

fencing shoes

Mr. Mcdowell said that Fencers' athletic shoes were usually torn apart because they had to drag and rub the ground in the process of stabbing.

Nike swordplay shoes use zigzag bandages to reduce wear and wear a breathable mesh at the top of the shoe to make it lighter and more comfortable.

Adidas's fencing shoes use a special coating leather in the heel of the shoe to provide more protection.

Mr. Thomke Hayekk said that the original ceramic coated man-made fibers usually began to melt when the fencer dragged their shoes.

The use of filling materials can protect athletes from the pain of being stabbed by the sword, and shoelaces are also fastened so that the blade of the opponent will not be jammed.

Mr. Thomke Hayekk said that if the player's tibia was attacked, it would be very painful, so Adidas enhanced the shoe's inner substrate and weakened the impact of the Epee attack.

Rowing / canoeing / swimming shoes

Adidas's shoes are made of thermoplastic materials that look like metal, but are actually lighter.

This shoe is also equipped with a wide buckle strap. If the rowing is overturned, the players can pull out their feet with only one hand.

The shoes used for canoeing have many small holes, and the water can overflow, but the shoes themselves can still maintain enough toughness to facilitate the canoeing players.

Although swimmers and diving items do not allow athletes to wear shoes to participate in the competition, Adidas has provided swimmers with slippers after swimming pools, claiming that their soles are soft, not easy to absorb water, and are equipped with breathable bandages.