Friday Shoe History Corner: Olympic Shoes
Posted on August 8th, 2008 by Shomore under Shoe History CornerIn honor of the opening ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, I thought it might be fun to cover some of the shoes worn during past and future Olympics games.
Worn during the Tokyo Olympic games in 1965, the “Tokio 64” shoes below weighs just 135 grams per shoe.
Runner Maurice Greene’s personalized shoe for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Greene won the bronze medal in the 100m race. Compared to the normal looking shoes back in 64, it’s fun to see how shoes now reflect the national spirit of each country.
Source: Adidas.com
For the Olympic games, the NotCot reports that Nike has designed a ’shoe’ for every sport in the games. I totally got a kick (pun intended) out of the taekwondo shoes.
Tonight, you can bet I’ll be glued to the TV, watching the prerecorded Olympics opening ceremony. I’m eager to see the shoes worn by each country during the Parade of the Nations at the Beijing National Stadium aka the Bird’s Nest .
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Piperlime
August 8th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
In its special Olympics preview supplement (Aug. 4), the New York Times published a short article about the specialized footwear worn by athletes in several sports. My favorite tidbit: epee fencers have footwear designed for handedness, so left and right shoes are different. Right-handers have more padding on their right heel because the right foot always leads and lunges. Here’s a link (scroll about halfway down): http://tinyurl.com/6dcgz5
And back in June, the Times ran a story about distance-running shoes made by a master Japanese crafstman. The soles are made of rice husks.
http://tinyurl.com/6q4jfw
August 11th, 2008 at 5:09 am
The Olympians should be proud of this post. It gives them this everlasting credibility and the strength of which country they belong. Wear both your passion and fashion. Stand up for your country.
August 11th, 2008 at 6:42 am
Nice post,
For Nike and Adidas, the Beijing Olympics are a fracas for this century domination of the leisure shoes world.
It is a neck to neck competition; I guess Nike’s new innovations in shoes are going to rock.
Babur Schah
August 15th, 2008 at 1:09 am
I like these Javelin Gravity Defyer Shoes.
Since the introduction of Active Sport Gravity Defyer Shoes in 2006 lots of innovation and advancement has taken place in shoes of similar breed. Recently Nike has launched its new range of shoes for every sport. These were instated in “The Nike Beijing Innovation Summit”.
Any how these shoes are fine.
Babur Schah