Adidas Rushed Out Of The Starting Line.

There are countless athletes wearing Adidas brands, including tennis stars Henman, soccer stars Beckham, Zidane, boxing Nassim Hamdel...

Adidas can be seen everywhere. It is an official supplier of many large events. It has become a visible existence in the minds of millions of people across the intercontinental, national boundaries and ages.

The bread apprenticeship, the founder of ADI dash, is the core of this brand story.

He died in 1978, but if you walk around any road in the world, you will soon find the footprints of the three stripes.

Even when Saddam Hussein was found hiding in a cave in northern Iraq, a reporter found a pair of Adidas football shoes in his collection.

Dassler brothers, which later became a company of Adidas, was first established by Adolf (ADI) Dassler and Rudolf Dassler brothers in 1920s.

They live in a small city in central Germany, Hull, Sakon al Kha, 20 kilometers west of Nuremberg.

ADI and Rudolf are relatively simple German workers. Like their contemporaries, they are keen on competitive sports and are keen on sporting events.

Many of the existing black and white photographs are scenes of ADI crossing the finish line or hurdling high jump. He is also a member of Herr R Gen Olah's local football team.

Sports for ADI is not just an amateur sport itself is very important, but also a natural and necessary part of the healthy and preferred way of life.

"A healthy mind in a healthy body" can be called his motto.

It is ADI's recognition of the value of sports (similar to the Corinth spirit, which was deeply loved by the British middle class) that led him to his chosen business.

In 1920, he gave up his career as a apprentice in a bakery, set up a studio in his mother's laundry and began his shoe making experiments.

At that time Hull had a lot of shoe factories, but from the very beginning, ADI was intent on making shoes that were mainly used for sports.

As for raw materials, ADI used all the waste and debris he could find in his long bicycle journey to collect all the remaining equipment left over during the end of the first World War.

What is particularly valuable is rubber, which he found from discarded car tyres and US petrol bombs.

His father, the foreman of a local shoe factory, strongly objected to his son's entry into the shoemaking industry. Because of his painful experience, he knew that the frequency of opening and closing down the shoe factory in this town was astonishing, and bread baking was a promising technology. His reason was "people need bread all the time".

But obviously, his failure ended in failure. Finally, when he saw his son working hard in his laundry room, he gave him some useful advice.

ADI accepted his father's advice and pulled some friends to help him in his small workshop, including Karl Selin, a local blacksmith who made small pieces of metal studs for ADI's first design (a pair of running shoes he made).

Slowly, ADI's small workshop began to put into commercial production. His first important product was "canvas shoes with chrome yellow leather sole", and then sold Mark, a 1.5 empire.

These shoes were a great success in the market, and his business continued well until 1924, when he invited his brother Rudolf to join the fledgling business that year.

Rudolf resigned from the sales work of a local leather goods company and established a new company with his brother, Dassler brothers, which specializes in training shoes, football shoes and running shoes.

1928, at the time of the Olympic Games, footwear consumers in Europe were quite different now.

No one will wear sports shoes in public unless it is for sports purposes.

Therefore, the brothers in the pursuit of passion and dreams on the road, understand that they must deliberately limit their target market, in this huge shoe industry to do that little piece.

In the early days when ADI was busy in his workshop, his main motivation was a belief that the relatively small market he chose had great room for improvement.

The design of sneakers at that time was very elementary, and those sneakers worn during his growth were both heavy and uncomfortable. Moreover, the athletic shoes of 1920s did not properly reflect the different requirements of different sports events, such as sprint, long-distance race, high jump and football.

ADI, with his love and understanding of sports mechanics, deeply feels that this is the field he can contribute to. He can make his design fully meet the requirements of every sport and improve athletic performance.

As he seriously thought about this new career, he became more and more focused on a simple idea, making high quality shoes to improve athletic performance.

It used to be - and still - the essence of the Adidas brand.

At the beginning, the alliance between ADI and Rudolf's brothers ran smoothly. The DAS brothers were both strong characters, though they often had differences, but they did well in business.

ADI is quiet, reserved and practical. Rudolf is outgoing and aggressive.

ADI is a designer and a technical innovation, and Rudolf is a marketing expert to adidas' products.

The early development of Dassler brothers looks promising, but it is not to the point.

In 1928, the shoes made by Darth made their first appearance at the Olympic Games, which made them excited.

By 1932, a German sprinter named Arthur Jonat won a 100 metre bronze medal at the Losangeles Olympic Games, and their joy was more impressive.

At that time, the company has grown into a sizeable company selling 10000 pairs of running shoes and soccer shoes annually.

They have 70 employees, of course, have moved out of Mrs. Darth's laundry room and moved into a shoe factory that they were newly bought because of bankruptcy.

The company's lucrative profits are enough for ADI to buy a British made victory motorcycle for himself. He seems to enjoy this return, and also appreciative and respect for what this business brings to him.

For a 32 year old former bakery apprentice, as a local small businessman, it has been quite successful, but he is not satisfied with it.

"The world's lightest running shoes" in the pursuit of stronger, lighter and more efficient sports shoes, he found that he lacked the excellent manufacturing technology needed to achieve this idea.

He had never received formal training in shoemaking, and he was a self-taught person. Now he feels that he has touched the ceiling of technology.

So the successful young entrepreneur decided to leave Hull's factory and return to school for the time being.

He went to Pierre Mason J to attend a shoemaking course, and Pierre Mason J was an ancient city not far from the French border, which has been the center of German footwear industry since 1780s.

He completed the two-year course in 12 months, and returned to Adidas soon to become one of the most skilled and creative shoemaker in Germany.

It is said that ADI promised to return to his brother before he came back to study. He must make the lightest running shoes in the world. He can achieve this goal, thanks entirely to his association with the American athlete Jesse Owens who caused a sensation in track and field.

Long before Owens achieved his legendary achievements at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, ADI, a super lover of track and field, had already known a lot about the sprinter.

In a track and field competition in California, Owens set 4 world records in a day, and the news soon spread to Hull's al.

So when Owens arrived in Europe, ADI asked his friend, John Weizl, the coach of the German track and field team, to arrange a meeting with the American people for him.

"I want him to wear my running shoes."

He said.

The meeting was arranged the night before the match. ADI took all his equipment and drove to Berlin. He wanted to show his product to the 22 year old sprinters.

This meeting is an important moment in ADI's life.

At the age of 36, he ushered in the first Olympic Games at home, and he was going to launch his favorite product for this event.

So, not to mention the marketing value of this moment - Rudolf will care about this problem - it must be an exciting time for him personally.

ADI provided Owens with a pair of nail shoes made of brown glove leather. The hand-made nails were from the hand of Sahlin, the Hull blacksmith who made the first pair of running shoes for ADI.

These shoes for Owens are the top works of ADI's skill.

The young track and field athletes immediately fell in love with the new shoes provided by the company, and he wore these shoes in every competition he was shortlisted in the sports meet.

Adie sat happily in the Olympic stadium to watch his shoes "bravely" win 100 meters dash, 200 meter dash, 4 x 100 relay race and 4 gold medals in long jump. This may be the most brilliant track and field performance in Olympic history.

The brothers broke up the "Puma" Darth brothers, who hoped to continue to strengthen ties with sports stars and prepare new products for the next Olympic Games. These good wishes soon collapsed, because the Second World War broke out in 1939, and the next Olympic Games have been 12 years later.

At the end of the first World War, ADI was recruited to the west when he was only a teenager. This time he stayed in Hull, Sato, and supported arms, and made boots and air defense guns for Germany.

Rudolf joined the army and later became a prisoner of the US Army. He was not released until 1946.

The Dassler brothers resumed the family business after the post war depression in the region. But there was never a very harmonious relationship between ADI and Rudolf. Their relationship deteriorated significantly in 1948.

The cooperation continued no longer. They meticulously allocated the assets of Dassler brothers, and the two brothers separated from each other.

ADI combined his name and surname to build Adidas brand. Rudolf pursued a more dynamic and dynamic image and created Puma.

Rudolf's son Amin and ADI's son, Khost, have joined their father's career after their adulthood - and have kept their distance.

Although the discord of the family is a pity for families and friends, this is the key factor for the success of the two businesses.

Adidas VS. Puma provides all the competition needed by the two companies. Their antagonism stimulates both sides to produce a spirit of antagonism, such as obsessive compulsive disorder. This spirit keeps pushing them to compete and innovate in a way that other rivals can hardly copy.

Therefore, after more than half a century after the breakup of brothers, Adidas and Puma have always maintained the status of the most famous sports brand in Europe. This is not an accident.

When ADI became the leader of his company in 1949, he completely broke away from his annoying brother, and he made the most important business activity in his career.

Over the years, he has experimenting with several stripes on both sides of his sneakers, such as Jesse Owens's running shoes, with two stripes.

ADI is not considered from the perspective of brand, but because of actual needs: the two sides of the shoes are stitched with strips, which can provide more support for shoes.

Football shoes, in particular, have to sew three stripes instead of sewing them.