By the time Alysa Liu reaches the end of her four-minute free skate, the energy inside the Milano Ice Skating Arena is unmistakable. With the final notes of Donna Summer's MacArthur Park Suite echoing through the building, Alysa joyfully finishes her programme, tossing a playful hair flip towards the camera. The crowd erupts. Seven triple jumps. Zero mistakes. The 20-year-old Team USA figure skater, clad in a shimmering gold dress, has just delivered the performance of her life. Moments later, the scores confirm it: Alysa has won Olympic gold, becoming the first US woman in nearly a quarter of a century to claim the sport's biggest prize.For Alysa, the Milano Cortina victory is the culmination of one of figure skating's most unexpected journeys. The youngest US national champion at 13, she walked away from the sport as a teenager, drained by the pressures of elite competition. Yet nearly two years later, she returned with a different perspective: if she was going to skate again, it would be on her terms. Because she loved it. And if she won, it would be as herself—not as someone else's version of what a champion should be.That mindset has helped turn Alysa into one of the sport's most intriguing athletes, someone who is redefining what winning can look like. Below, in her own words, she shares how she thinks about pressure, success and learning to trust her own path.

Success can mean a lot of different things to different people. For me, it's about being with the people I love, making memories with them and spending time together. It's about having new experiences and just living. The mantra I keep coming back to is YOLO. It's cliché—but you really only live once. So you have to make the most of it for yourself.These days, I say no to more things that I used to say yes to. I like to hear people out and I like to try new things, but I trust my instincts. When I came back to figure skating, people said I would have to change my hair, and I said, "No, I won't be changing my hair". People give me song suggestions, and I'll take them into consideration, but if I don't like something, I'm not going to skate to it. I want to make choices that feel like me.My advice for kids or anyone feeling a lot of pressure is to stop and ask who or where it's actually coming from. It's easy to feel like there are so many expectations on you, but when you really think about it, who's the one putting that pressure on you? It's usually not that many people. For me, journalling and identifying where that feeling is originating from really helps. Sometimes when you narrow it down, you realise it's coming from one specific person, or maybe no one at all.

It's important to surround yourself with the right people. You've got to have people around you who have your best interests in mind. People you care about and that care about you. I've been fortunate to build a team that really knows what I want. They give me the space to make my own choices. I get the final say for everything—my programmes, my music, the dress, the hair, the make-up. They respect my artistic choices, and that makes a huge difference.&nbsp;Sometimes you can forget why you started in the first place. If something is feeling too hard mentally or physically, take a break and try other things. Step away, reassess and see if it pulls you back in. If it does, great. And if it doesn't, then maybe you're being pulled toward something completely new.At the end of my programmes, I always try to do something for the cameras. The camera is right there on your face when you finish skating, so you've got to do something. A hair flip is just what I go to. We don't have much screen time when we're out there, so you have to make the most of it.

When it comes to training, I'm pretty self-disciplined. I like to train, actually. That's my favourite part about being an athlete. I really romanticise it now. No one has to tell me when to stop. I know myself really well, so I know what my limit is. And that comes from a lot of trial and error.My favourite way to reset is just turning my phone off. Usually my phone is what overwhelms me the most. So when I feel like that, I turn it off and spend time with my friends and family.At the end of the day, if it's not a "hell yes", it's a "hell no". When it comes to activities or opportunities, that's how I think about it now. I still say yes to a lot of things, but I'm more intentional about it. I don't really have regrets. You live and you learn. A big part of getting to that was learning to stop shutting down my own feelings and needs and no longer putting certain people on a pedestal.To feel free again, I had to unlearn routine. I was kind of stuck in the same day over and over again. But if you want a different life, you have to make different choices. I had to switch my inputs to have a different output.

The gold medal–winning figure skater—and sport icon for authenticity—reflects on pressure, success and learning to trust her own path.

For the win

Alysa Liu Is Winning on Her Own Terms

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From the Newsroom

Words: <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="/company/people/davis-jones-senior-editor" target="_blank" class="ql-size-small">Davis Jones</a> Images: <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="/company/people/cameron-strand-contributing-photographer" target="_blank" class="ql-size-small">Cameron Strand</a>To fully understand the look on Niels Laros's face after narrowly clinching this year's Bowerman Mile in Eugene, you have to go back to the ringing of the bell lap, when he still trailed the race leader, American Yared Nuguse, by more than three seconds.In front of a sold-out crowd in Eugene, Ore. at the 50th&nbsp;Pre Classic, the 20-year-old Dutch runner tapped into his own brand of Hayward magic. He separated himself from the chase pack with 400m to go. Then, at the final 200m mark, he took off for Nuguse, running an unthinkable 25.9 second split and making up an almost 8-metre gap in the home straight. The two racers lunged at the finishing line. A few seconds later, Laros saw the official time, wearing a look of disbelief: 3:45.94. He'd won the Bowerman Mile by one-one-hundredth of a second and set a new Dutch national record. His final lap—53.3—was one of the fastest fourth laps since the United Kingdom's Steve Cram broke the world record in 1985."Man, that Hayward magic is real", says Laros. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime feeling to experience a race like that".For 25 years, the Bowerman Mile has brought together the world's most talented milers, assembling pros, world champions and Olympic medallists. The event is one of four premier mile races left in the world: the Dream Mile in Oslo, the Wanamaker Mile in New York City and&nbsp;&nbsp;the Mile Invitational in Iowa. Of those, it's produced more sub-4-minute miles than any other race, counting 418 such performances to date, including this year's race in Eugene.&nbsp;Speaking of which, the 2025 race was arguably the deepest mile race in history, featuring the most men in one race under 3:50 (13), 3:49 (9) and 3:48 (8).What makes the Bowerman Mile stand apart? Fast times don't always correlate to a fast track. The latter can be an immeasurable mix of qualities tied to time, place and circumstances, leading to generational performances. But talk to anyone who's competed in the race and they'll tell you there's something different about the Bowerman Mile.&nbsp;

The competitive field

Year after year, the Bowerman Mile draws a stacked line-up, assembled of reigning world champions and record holders. Since 2000, it's taken a time of 3:51.84 or faster to win the event. The race's buy-in is all the more impressive considering that its results don't count towards points at the end of the pro circuit, even though it's classified as a Diamond League meet.A runner who always circles the date of the Bowerman Mile is Australia's Cam Myers, who finished sixth this year and set an Australian under-20 record with 3:47.50. In 2023, at just 16 years old, Myers ran as a pacemaker for Norway's Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who clocked the Bowerman Mile's fastest-ever time in 3:43.73, setting a European and Diamond League record."We all want to win this race in particular", says Myers. "It's intensely competitive, and it's the perfect environment for fast times".Whether or not a record falls at the Bowerman Mile, each year's race teases out greatness in every runner, carrying the makings of a personal best.

Grant Fisher, who holds the American record in the 2-mile distance, ran his first Bowerman Mile this year, laying down a 3:48.29. The race is a self-fulfilling prophecy, he says. When racers know they are surrounded by a fast field, they all raise their game. Plus, the Bowerman Mile is almost always rabbited, or led by a pacemaker. Runners know they'll get wrenched to their physical thresholds. Once the pacemaker drops out, there's no time to think. Just go."We all know the pacer is going to take us deep into the race", Fisher says. "When the pacer drops, the field is of such high quality that these amazing times just keep rolling".

Consider one of the Bowerman Mile's most memorable performances—when Alan Webb, then a secondary school student from Virginia, broke the national secondary school mile record set by Jim Ryun, which had stood for 37 years. The pacemaker took the first 409 metres at a searing 54.6, equivalent to a mile pace of 3:34.8.At the race's halfway mark, Webb had moved up from last place to 13th. The pace was brutal and yet, with 400m to go, Webb remembers how his body felt loose, light and capable of much, much more. He began picking runners off on the back straight. His turnover cycled with a power that outlasted men a decade older, who had competed for medals, who had set national records.&nbsp;"Sometimes, the stars align in a race, and I knew this was one of those moments", says Webb, recalling the moment. "When I got to that bell lap, I was able to find something in myself. Running the Bowerman Mile has that effect on people".

The historic location

The grandeur of the former Hayward Field, with its wooden grandstands and its Bowerman Building as the sentinel watching from the track's eastern end, is different from how a spectator would describe the view from the updated stadium—a colossal venue built for the modern age. Webb remembers while he was barrelling down the back straight in 2001 how the extreme slope of the west grandstands gave the feeling that the fans "were right on top of you". The passion and knowledge of the fans sitting in those seats rivals any location in athletics.&nbsp;

"Even before Prefontaine, Oregon had a history of domestic milers who were very, very good; people like James Bailey, Dyrol Burleson and Jim Grelle back in the Bowerman coaching days", says Pat Tyson, who ran for the University of Oregon in the early '70s, where he was roommates with Pre himself.&nbsp;&nbsp;"The mile always had a cachet among fans here, even before the Bowerman Mile officially began".

Hayward Field is a place where fans take on the role of engaged sports scientist versus passive spectator. They'll set their personal stopwatches to the smoke of the gun and scribble a runner's splits in the margins of their programme.&nbsp;Kaarin Knudson knows. She ran for UO's athletics & cross-country team from 1994 to 1999. A seven-time NCAA qualifier who won the NCAA's Woman of the Year for Oregon in her senior season, she now serves as the mayor of Eugene. Her experience as a civic leader and a former athlete gives her a uniquely personal view on what makes Eugene's passion for athletics so special.

"I have distinct memories while at UO of going on my easy runs and being stopped by community members, people I didn't know; they'd congratulate me on a race I ran the previous weekend", says Knudson. "When you're an athlete, it's motivating to be surrounded by a community who both root for you on race day and who recognise you when you're 'offstage', so to speak".Few competitors benefit from the Hayward energy quite like those who ran for UO during their college years—runners like Cole Hocker, who's run his top three fastest mile times at the Pre Classic. During his rookie season in 2022, he donned the Nike kit in front of his home crowd for the first time at the Bowerman Mile. This year, he improved his personal best to 3:47.43."Every time I get the chance to run at Hayward, I remind myself to appreciate the moment, just because of the history that has happened there before me", says Hocker.&nbsp;

The special distance

The mile and its cousin, the 1500m, are separated by a little more than 100m. Depending on who you ask, the difference in how you run the mile compared with the 1500m is marginal. Webb jokes that you're basically doing the same event, but the mile comes down to "who's willing to suffer a little longer". Others, like Laros, say the tactical game of the mile is slightly different from the 1500m. For him, the main difference comes from the start.&nbsp;"Because you're starting on the opening curve in the mile, you have less time to figure out your position before you need to tuck into the right spot", says Laros. "You basically have to get shot out of a cannon and find a good slot so you're not sorting it out on the corner and running a little extra distance".The cultural power of the mile gives it a revered place in the consciousness of running, along with the marathon. Both are niche distances in athletics, yet still count for world records.&nbsp;The wonder of the mile might come down to its clean simplicity. Four laps. Taking the laps at one minute a piece add up to four minutes, considered the standard for the elite miler. The starting line is in roughly the same place as the finish. The same fans who cheer on the field at the gun are the same who cheer at the finish.&nbsp;

One could argue that the mile distance, in fact, was the spark that lit Bill Bowerman's fascination with long-distance running performance. As a freshman at Oregon playing American football, he met Ralph Hill, the first elite miler he befriended at the university. One day, Bowerman ran 400m around the track at an all-out sprint to test his speed. The clock read 63 seconds. Bill Hayward, UO's track coach, leaned over and smirked. "Just so you know", he said, "Ralph goes that fast for four laps".

Its relative scarcity at the professional level adds to the distance's mythical status. Pro runners don't get many opportunities to compete in the mile. You might get a couple of shots at it per year, between Eugene, Oslo and New York City."You can jump into plenty of 1500m races during the year. But it's no guarantee you'll get into one of these mile races on the pro circuit", says Webb. "That's assuming you're healthy when your name gets called. If you get a chance at the mile, you better put it all on the line".That motivation fuels every competitor in the Bowerman Mile. From the young racer who's travelling to Eugene for the first time, to the seasoned pro who wants to assert their world ranking, the Bowerman Mile summons a kind of communal willpower. For Laros, participation among those four laps, holding nothing back, is a rare privilege, one that can be tough to describe. Ironically, sometimes a fast time takes a backseat to the opportunity to step onto that 1609m starting line."Winning this race meant even more to me than setting the national record", he says. "Obviously, running a fast time gives me a lot of pride, but taking the win here, at this place, was what I'm most proud of".

The Bowerman Mile at the Pre Classic has produced more sub-4:00 times than any event in the world. Here's what makes it so fast.

Inside the world's fastest mile race

This is, obviously, a running story.But the story of the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-pegasus-42-official-images" target="_blank">Nike Pegasus</a> is also something more specific—a case study in how restraint, clarity and attention to fundamentals can produce lasting success. Launched in 1982, the Pegasus would go on to become Nike's most consistent and popular running shoe of all time, a franchise that has endured across eras, innovations and shifting footwear philosophies. "There's no modest way of saying this", said Sebastian Tesche, product line manager of the Pegasus 35. "The Peg is the single biggest and best running shoe in the world. It's bigger than many of our competitors".It wasn't designed to be an icon. It was designed to solve a problem.

In the late 1970s, Nike's earliest experiments with Air were full of promise but hindered by the realities of the technology. The 1978 Tailwind introduced Air to running yet it introduced stability issues that the company would spend the next several years trying to fix. The Columbia and Aurora that followed solved some of those problems but felt stiff at a time when runners wanted something livelier underfoot. Fortunately, Nike knew Air was a long game.&nbsp;

The great thing that we always thought about Air at that time—and it's still true—is that it doesn't lose its cushioning properties hardly at all through time", said Howard Banich, who oversaw running product in 1982. "Jeff Johnson, Nike's first employee, always wanted us to do an ad that showed a person coming back to the shoe store with just the Air bag from their shoe and saying, 'I would like another shoe around this please.' Because the Air bag was still going strong".Still, the question remained: how do you put Air where it matters without making the shoe too expensive or too complicated?One solution came from an ongoing innovation project led by former Nike CEO Mark Parker. Known internally as the Air Wedge Trainer—the concept that would ultimately become the Pegasus—it&nbsp;borrowed an Internationalist upper and outsole, added a heel Air unit encapsulated in polyurethane and positioned Air right at heel strike. It was essentially a simpler, cheaper expression of Air and it tested well.

"A heel wedge still provided the benefits of Air where it was needed the most—under&nbsp;the heel at heel strike—but it was less expensive because it was really only a third of the size of the full-length Air-Sole that was used in the Tailwind", Parker said.At the same time, New Balance had just released the 990 with a provocative tagline: "At a suggested retail price of $100, is the 990 too expensive or too inexpensive?" The price point shocked the market and galvanised Nike. If the competition was willing to push upward, Nike saw an opportunity to create a shoe that delivered performance at a more approachable cost.The Air Wedge Trainer, with its strong test results and modest bill of materials, suddenly looked like the perfect platform.

Building a "best practices" shoe

With the Air Wedge Trainer as a foundation, development for the Pegasus took place at Nike's facility in Exeter, New Hampshire, where the heel Air wedge concept was built into a fully realised running shoe. Bill Peterson designed the outsole. Bruce Kilgore, deep in Air Force 1 development, offered design input. Parker integrated those ideas into a simple, functional upper: grey, with Dark Navy accents—a look one European sales rep later described as "a rainy day".Nike also made a strategic shift to hit its target price of around $50: manufacturing moved to Korea, to the Poon Young factory. Very few running shoes were being produced in Korea at the time. Components had to be imported—Air wedges from the US, nylon from Germany—and Nike developers scrambled to refine techniques. "The Air unit didn't fit correctly in the shoe at first", recalled footwear innovation veteran Steve Roth. During a holiday back in the US, he spent two weeks in Saco, Maine resizing Air wedges by hand so they would sit properly in the midsole.Still, the project moved fast. In only about four months, Nike had a completed shoe—one built around Air and a carefully selected set of core features: a new EVA foam called Tomilite offered a resilient ride. A Waffle outsole, with lugs orientated for motion, gave runners better ground contact and stability. The upper was simple, lightweight and unpretentious.

"The Pegasus was essentially our 'best practices' shoe", Roth said. "It had Air, yes, but it was mostly about: what are the best features we can put in a product that hit the sweet spot of the market?"It wasn't the flashiest running shoe in the line, nor was it meant to be. It was designed to work.

A running manual for the masses

Nike's confidence in the Pegasus showed in the small details. The company had begun releasing "owner's manuals" with its higher-profile footwear to help runners understand new technologies and the Pegasus received one, too. It walked consumers through Air, Tomilite and the shoe's geometry. The transparency helped reinforce the Pegasus as a shoe built on clarity, usefulness and trust.

Naming the Pegasus

Today, many assume the Pegasus name came from the idea of a half-horse, half-winged creature, an allusion to the balance of EVA and Air in the midsole. But the real story is far simpler.To name the shoe, employees dropped suggestions into a bowl. Several slips of paper read Pegasus, including one from Mark Parker. Nike had been playing with mythology themes—Odyssey, Valkyrie—and Pegasus fit the family. "Names were a lot easier back then", Parker said.The name stuck. And with it came the beginnings of what would become Nike's most beloved running shoe.

The instant hit

Nike introduced the Pegasus at the 1982 New York City Marathon. While Alberto Salazar powered to his third consecutive win in a pair of Mariahs, the men's Pegasus debuted in limited quantities as part of Nike's technical running line. It launched to select dealers and quickly posted strong early sales: nearly $200,000 in under a month, with roughly 8,000 units sold. By December, that number had climbed to more than 35,000 pairs.When the Pegasus rolled out more broadly in early 1983, the reaction was immediate. "The initial reaction to the Pegasus was very good", said Jim Docherty, who began his career as a Nike EKIN that year. "When the Tailwind hit the market, some consumers thought it was too soft because most midsoles were fairly firm at that time and the Tailwind was a big change from the norm. The Pegasus with heel Air bridged the gap between old EVA midsoles and total Air".

For young runners and store employees alike, the Pegasus quickly became the reliable choice—the shoe you knew you could recommend. In 1983, long before he became a Nike Running veteran and future Pegasus PLM, Tim Slingsby was a student working in a running store. "The Pegasus was your go-to shoe when someone would come in, you would sell them", he said. "As a high school kid, you knew it would work, it would perform, and it was a great price. It had everything".Within six months, Nike had sold nearly 300,000 pairs, generating $6.4 million in men's sales alone.The formula worked.

The every-runner's shoe

By 1985, Pegasus sales had reached 2.5 million pairs. Nike had found its lane and owned it. Longtime Nike designer Bob Lucas compared the shoe to an automotive staple: "to use an automotive analogy, auto manufacturers have their Pegasus in their lines: a Honda Civic, the Toyota Corolla. … that kind of product line where it's a value-based proposition".Over the next several years, Nike made only modest adjustments to the shoe—incremental material updates, seasonal colour changes—while leaving its core intact. That restraint became part of the Pegasus's identity. "I think everybody always knew it was one of those things where you didn't want to change it", said Clare Hamill, a leader at Nike Running in the mid-1980s. "That was the biggest challenge—how&nbsp;to make it better without changing it".

At the heart of the early Pegasus was a simple principle: don't complicate it. The midsole, upper and outsole were all guided by what Hamill described plainly. "The core philosophy of the Pegasus was, keep it simple. No junk. Give people what they need and don't overbuild".Runners felt that clarity. By the late 1980s, the Pegasus had become a dependable constant in an increasingly crowded running landscape, one defined less by flash than by trust. The 1989 Air Pegasus, built on existing tooling with a soft poly-pag and synthetic suede upper, would later be remembered as a high-water mark. "If you asked loyal Pegasus wearers through the years what their favourite version has been", said former Nike Running Leader Kevin Paulk, "I would be willing to bet a lot of people would say the Peg '89. It had a nice soft upper and fit like a glove".

From its earliest years, that has remained the draw of the Pegasus: a running shoe built not to chase trends but to earn loyalty, mile after mile.

The Peg wasn't designed to be an icon. It was designed to solve a problem. See how that solution became "the single biggest and best running shoe in the world".

Nike Pegasus: The Origin of a Running Workhorse

Essential read

What would the back of your athletic trading card say? That's what Nike's Baseline testing is for: a way for all athletes to understand their physical tools.What It DoesNike's Baseline testing, made up of five assessments, is as foundational as it sounds. The assessments are borrowed from the worlds of biomechanics, physiotherapy and exercise science, and can be completed in a matter of minutes: a 3D body scan, a foot scan, a barefoot pressure test, an ankle range of motion test and countermovement jumps. In many ways, Baseline is the most ubiquitous tool that the Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL) offers. Every professional athlete who visits the NSRL has the option of doing the testing, no matter their itinerary. But that doesn't mean it's a resource that's exclusive to a precious few. Baseline is the one test series in the NSRL that's also open to every Nike employee.Considered together, the test results form the baseline of a person's athletic profile—how powerful they are, how mobile they are, how explosive they are and other traits. Knowing these attributes gives Nike researchers, scientists and designers a clearer picture of how to serve an athlete's needs.

What It Helps Us DoJackie Shea, Baseline operator, Innovation, says Nike researchers selected each of the&nbsp;Baseline tests to set an experiential, diagnostic tone for every athlete interaction within the NSRL. Before the opening of the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/inside-the-nike-sports-research-lab-lebron-james-innovation-center" target="null">LeBron James Innovation Center</a> in October 2021, athlete engagement in the lab was largely reserved for testing footwear and apparel prototypes. There's nothing wrong with that, says Shea, a former D1 athlete who studied kinesiology and exercise science. But that process largely treats the athlete as a test pilot secondary to the vehicle—the product—they are steering. "We wanted Baseline to help bring athletes to the centre of the lab, distinct from product", she says.&nbsp;Through their Baseline results, athletes can see nuances in their athletic profile. Are you geared towards slower endurance or more explosive power? Your vertical jump results might point you towards an answer. Does your anatomy from the 3D body scan suggest you have any imbalances in your proportions? These results are valuable to athletes for their own sake. You don't need to test a product to gain a better awareness of your own body.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

After guiding more than 4,000 athletes through Baseline, Shea has learned to spot trends in physical profiles among different sports while offering remedies via other Nike tools. For example, runners tend to have weak posterior strength, so in their back, glutes and hamstrings. They stand the most to gain from consistent weight training, provided in the hundreds of workouts from the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.nike.com/ntc-app" target="_blank">Nike Training Club App</a>. Athletes who play lateral sports, like basketball, tend to have limited mobility, so a Nike yoga class at a nearby store might be just what they need to balance out.Key to Shea's job is a fair amount of myth-busting when discussing test results. An athlete might comment on how running hurts their knees, but when they test their ankle mobility, the athlete grimaces, looking stiff as a board. They test their gait on <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/nike-nsrl-form" target="_blank">NSRL Form</a>—a recent addition to the test line-up—and are clearly overstriding. With each step, most of their force is displaced through their knees and their back instead of transferred evenly through their body. Running doesn't hurt their knees—the way they run hurts their knees. Baseline results help give athletes a course of action for what troubles them the most.&nbsp;

Baseline does play a role in ensuring that Nike researchers test products efficiently and orient them towards real solutions. For example, Baseline results are a common way for NSRL researchers to recruit for new studies. An athlete with strong results in explosive vertical jumping power is an ideal fit for a future basketball jumping study that tests a new hoops silhouette. A distance runner, on the other hand, might find a steady-state treadmill run in the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/nike-sport-research-lab-environmental-chambers" target="_blank">climate chambers</a> a better match, which in turn can help scientists evaluate the latest sweat-wicking material innovations like <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-aero-fit-official-images" target="null">Aero-FIT</a>. As more and more athletes do Baseline, the lab's research specificity gets sharper and sharper. The same is true for product development.&nbsp;That process is ongoing. A Baseline evaluation is never the end of the story. It's the beginning of a conversation.&nbsp;"Baseline creates relationships with athletes that aren't passive, but active", says Shea. "The conversations between athletes and their test results are in a constant cycle with each other. One of my favourite parts in this job is getting to ask follow-up questions. You're showing some imbalance between your left-leg power and your right leg. Did you have some kind of injury to your leg early on? Tell me more. There's always more to every athlete's story".

What would the back of your athletic trading card say? That's what the NSRL's Baseline testing is for: a way for all athletes to understand their physical tools.

Sport science

Next Level

The NSRL Baseline Testing

World Athletics Championship preview

The Willy Wonka factory for innovation. The NASA of sports science. The epicentre of performance product creation. Athletes, industry leaders and visiting partners have described the Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, in myriad ways. Our teams like to call it their dreamland. The place where creating, designing and breaking limits to better serve athletes has no bounds. The secret rooms where the unimaginable—the future of fastest, strongest, greatest—is made real. The images below capture a behind-the-scenes look into those unknown spaces, with audio context from Nike employees who help bring the dreams to life.

LEBRON JAMES INNOVATION CENTER

The <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/inside-the-nike-sports-research-lab-lebron-james-innovation-center" target="_blank">LeBron James Innovation Center</a> is where listening to the voice of the athlete is made tangible.&nbsp;While athletes are observed,&nbsp;others are at play too: researching, testing and, yes, creating the future. The goal is to understand athletes' unique needs and opportunities, contextualise challenges and generate breakthroughs across the spectrum of play and movement in a variety of environments.&nbsp;Much of that action takes place in the building's top floor, the Nike Sport&nbsp;Research Lab (NSRL), which houses the world's largest motion-capture installation (400 cameras), a basketball court, pitch and track with 97&nbsp;force plates, sweat-wicking mannequins and three environmental climate chambers that can mimic nearly any condition on Earth. Some of the innovator's prize tools: more than 80 prototyping machines that allow the Nike team to produce samples to test in under an hour.

DEPARTMENT OF NIKE ARCHIVES (DNA)

Understanding the past can inform and inspire how we innovate for the future, and no space at Nike preserves and stokes a more thorough accounting of our heritage than the Department of Nike Archives. This 50-plus-year Nike archive is the greatest in the world. From the actual broken waffle iron Bill Bowerman made famous to the self-lacing shoes from everyone's favourite futuristic film to Serena's iconic gladiator outfit, DNA houses the tangible history—papers, posters, photographs, memorabilia and of course, shoes—that represent the culture and soul of the Swoosh.

AIR MANUFACTURING INNOVATION (AIR MI)

There's something magical about putting on a fresh pair of Nike Air shoes, and we think it's thanks to our&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-air-blueprint-pack-official-images" target="_blank">unique Air technology</a>. In just three facilities in the US—two located a mile from Nike World Headquarters—experts on our Air Manufacturing Innovation (Air MI) team make that magic happen. Air MI is where we produce the propriety TPU material that forms our Air units and where we hold 500-plus patents. It's also the place where a highly skilled team comes together to build the products that will help break sport barriers. Inside the facility are engineers with 15 specialities across them, who custom-build technology platforms and flexible, scalable production lines to deliver the exact capabilities needed to manufacture the next generation of Air. That's in partnership with skilled production teammates, trained across the line, to ensure the highest fidelity and quality of our Air units.

Advanced Product Creation Center (APCC)

The APCC is a top-secret, state-of-the-art facility focused on innovation in product design. Consider it the home of rapid prototyping for Nike designers, scientists and researchers who need to test, refine and create new ideas for athletes at scale. With advanced methods of make, the APCC explores more flexible and forward-looking approaches that streamline the development and manufacturing process, reducing time and effort, while pushing boundaries in sports innovation.⁠ You'll find chemical, mechatronics, process and robotics engineers, as well as machinists, all dedicated to accelerating ideas through trial and experimentation, faster and more precisely than ever before.

Photography by <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.instagram.com/alastairwiper" target="_blank">Alastair Philip Wiper</a>, shot for the "<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.design-museum.de/en/exhibitions/detailpages/nike.html" target="_blank">Nike: Form Follows Motion</a>" exhibit at the Vitra Design Museum.

Get a behind-the-scenes look of Nike's World Headquarters and the places where we create, design and dream, all to serve athletes.

Photo essay

The spaces where Nike creates the future of sport

When Marquis Mills Converse founded his eponymous company in 1908 in Boston, Mass., his mission was to create an operation that functioned independent of the industry's monopolies, rooted in a community of the best rubber shoemakers. His first products were galoshes and waterproof winter boots, which meant demand for his wares dipped in warmer seasons. To keep his highly skilled craftspeople occupied year-round, Converse needed a summer offering. A canvas tennis shoe with a rubber sole debuted in 1910, but the company's true breakthrough didn't come until it saw an opportunity to apply its signature innovations to a sneaker expressly designed for a then-newfangled local sport: basketball.Invented in 1891 in nearby Springfield, Mass., basketball was growing in popularity and being adopted by regional colleges when Converse introduced its "Non-Skid" shoe in 1917, defining the design as the "All-American basket-ball shoe". It was crafted on the company's original dress shoe last with two-piece quarter for superior ankle fit and paired with a non-skid sole that employed Converse's patented diamond-tread pattern.&nbsp;

The sneaker was first marketed to the area's coaches, who provided Converse with constructive feedback, including noting that they'd prefer a darker canvas upper because the light tan hue revealed too many scuffs and dings. In response, the company created a dark brown version of the Non-Skid, featuring black trim up the eye row. The iteration was officially branded the "All Star" in 1919, kicking off a new round of basketball-specific innovations that came to characterise the silhouette as the leading performance basketball shoe of the next half-century.As for the shoe's namesake, Chuck Taylor (aka Charles Hollis Taylor), he arrived a few years later.

True to its name, the Chuck Taylor All Star was worn by basically every top basketball player pre-1965. These athletes included players competing on the world's biggest stage in 1936, when Converse equipped the US men's basketball team with white Chucks featuring red and blue stripes on their foxing tape. The custom version was such a hit that competing teams adopted it, and the colourway was permanently added to the product line. In 1939, America's first national college basketball championship featured players in Chucks. In 1962, basketball's professional single-game scoring record&nbsp;of 100&nbsp;points was made in Chucks. In 1971, Chucks debuted in team colours, allowing teams to match their kit to their shoes for the first time. Chucks was basketball, and basketball was Chucks.

As it turns out, the performance innovations that made the Chuck a great basketball design also made it a great skateboarding shoe.

Skateboarding debuted in mid-century California as "sidewalk surfing", a pastime for when the waves were flat. The low-top Chuck, which came out in 1957, was already a favourite of these "beach boys" and perfectly adapted to the new street sport, thanks to its underfoot cushioning, grippy rubber and form-fitting canvas upper.

Over 50 years later, the Chuck retains its foundational status in skate and with its top athletes—even as the sport has moved from the street to the world's premier competitions and into its leading museums. In 2023, the Design Museum in London hosted "Skateboard",&nbsp;the exhibition arm of a multimedia project that also included <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.phaidon.com/store/design/skateboard-9781838667498/" target="null">a book</a> created in collaboration with curator Jonathan Olivares, Converse and Phaidon, chronicling the countercultural design history of skateboarding.

The Chuck's simple, no-frills style also reflects skate's democratic, live-on-your-own-terms DNA—which has taken it everywhere.

Tyler, the Creator says it well: "I'm from LA, and I grew up with skateboarders. [The Chuck Taylor] is a very staple shoe in that lifestyle". The Chuck bridged skate and music in the '90s and early noughties, but the shoe's musical roots stretch back to artists topping Billboard charts in the '50s and '60s. These global stars wore the silhouette everywhere: on stages from California to England, crossing Penny Lane, traversing the beaches of Hawthorne and strolling the streets of Haight-Ashbury.

Over the decades, the Chuck has collected a roster of musical artists that rivals a legacy record label's list and spans all genres, from punk, alternative and grunge to hip-hop, indie rock and pop. It has also cemented its place in recording studios, on album covers and at global music festivals, even infiltrating classical music halls. In 2018, when the conductor Jonathon Heyward forgot his formal shoes for an orchestra performance, he wore his red Chucks onstage, nearly upstaging the concert. "Being able to find a sense of relatability within classical music is something that I am really passionate about, and Chuck Taylors are incredible barrier breakers", explains Heyward, who is music & artistic director of the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center, and music director at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. "By simply wearing a pair of Chuck Taylors to my concert, I become more relatable—and people's openness becomes greater when there is that sense of relatability. The walls go down and I can take them on a journey, which is what classical music is and what a live classical music performance is about".

As a cultural bellwether of mid-century America, the Chuck couldn't ignore colour. First introduced for basketball-centric reasons, the rainbow of hues also made a statement by breaking down colour barriers on court and off, celebrating diversity and championing self-expression in all forums.

From primary tones came endless prints and motifs, with the '80s debuting camouflage and animal and glitter treatments along with checkerboard, strike and glow-in-the-dark patterns. New materials, heights and shapes followed, evolving the Chuck from a signifier of specific subcultures to a customisable badge for those independent enough not to follow—and for an ever-evolving roster of collaborators.

It all began in 1934 with Disney, Converse's first brand partnership, which defined Chucks as the first shoes to feature Mickey Mouse. Despite this high-profile launch, it wasn't until the late noughties that collaboration became a central element of the Chuck. The 2008 Converse 1HUND(RED) Artists Collection commissioned 100 global musicians, graphic designers and graffiti artists to use the Chuck as a canvas on which to express their support of the fight against AIDS, empowering the community for a cause and unleashing a dam of creativity. The stream of joint creations has remained steady, including signature contributions from the brand's longest-standing collaborator, Comme des Garçons (CDG) PLAY.

The instant, persistent popularity of the Converse x PLAY Comme des Garçons partnership confirmed what had been apparent for decades: the Chuck effortlessly resides in high-fashion spheres, whose leading visionaries grew up with the shoe, influenced by its anti-conformist ethos and customisable style. As fashion designer Rick Owens put it, "When I think of Converse, I think of the black and white Chuck Taylors and the punk rock generation. These have always been iconic pillars of my aesthetic".As the noughties wore on and digital media democratised access to the fashion world, the Chuck cemented its status in this once-rarefied yet open-minded world. It graced runways in both original and bespoke forms at the same time as it populated the pages of glossies and appeared in street-style snaps from global fashion weeks.

Deeply entwined in the fabric of global culture, the Chuck has likewise witnessed a myriad of historical moments, adorned the feet of diverse history-makers and embedded itself into the greater societal landscape.

As its endless iterations prove, the Chuck could likely claim the title of the most customised sneaker in history. It has been splatter-painted and Sharpied; adorned with badges, pins and spikes; embroidered and cross-stitched; inverted. Like a fingerprint, each expression reflects its creator's unique creativity. As confirmed by Converse All Star Rocco Montagnoli Bruzzone. "Chucks have helped me express myself and my individuality since I was a child, when I used to sketch on them. Now, I wear a clean pair of Chucks to my meetings".

Recognising the powerful relationship a one-of-a-kind Chuck fosters with its wearer, the brand introduced limited-edition offerings&nbsp;as far back as 1988, via mail-order catalogue. Next came hyper-local Chuck collections, such as Lunar New Year and City Packs. Often made in collaboration with local creators, these city-exclusive designs weave the distinct cultural weft of their locale into the Chuck's signature form. In 2015, Converse further evolved its personalisation platform with the introduction of Converse By You, a digital design programme that reached new heights with the record-breaking 2024 Converse By You x Billie Eilish collaboration—all in an effort to bring creators closer to their Chucks.

And that's just the first century.

The shoe's journey from afterthought to global icon defies convention, which begins to explain why the Converse Chuck Taylor All Star has served as a talisman of self-expression for multiple generations, subcultures and genres: It has never tried to fit in.

Feature

Journey of an icon: the history of the Chuck Taylor All Star

Inside our design and innovation

In the late 1950s, veteran athletics coach Bill Bowerman was dissatisfied with available running spikes, which were made from weighty leather and metal. As a result, he became obsessed with shaving weight off the shoes to help runners slash seconds off their times. His quest wound up redefining athletic footwear.&nbsp; Prior to this feat, Bowerman's drive and relentless curiosity had precipitated a string of diverse accomplishments: born in 1911 in Portland, Oregon, he excelled as a student-athlete while attending the University of Oregon and later gained acclaim as a high-school American football and track coach. He fought in World War II and came back a decorated hero. In 1948, Bowerman returned to his university alma mater and, during his 24-year tenure, led the university to four NCAA track titles and coached 16 sub-four-minute milers. He also introduced jogging to the community of Eugene in the 1960s, which helped spark a national phenomenon, and he served as the US Olympic track coach in 1972.

Bowerman was also a mentor, coach and friend to Phil Knight, with whom he co-founded&nbsp;Blue Ribbon Sports, the precursor to Nike, in 1964. His confidence and counsel helped the company's original business model—importing and selling Japanese-made&nbsp;<a href="https://store.nike.com/us/en_us/pw/running-shoes/8yzZoi3" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">running shoes</a>&nbsp;—to succeed and grow.&nbsp;However, Bowerman's own footwear innovations proved even more influential, shaping Nike's ethos of leveraging athlete insights to design transformative products.

Building a better shoe

Bowerman first began tinkering with running shoes in the 1950s, when he wrote to several footwear companies proposing ideas for improving shoes to better serve runners. None accepted his recommendations. Frustrated but not deterred, Bowerman took matters into his own hands and, with the guidance of a local cobbler, learnt how to make shoes. To start, he deconstructed existing racing shoes with his band saw and examined their anatomy. Then, he toyed with metal and plastic spike plates and assembled various uppers over diverse lasts. Later, a Springfield-based boot maker provided technical advice and showed Bowerman how to craft shoe patterns.&nbsp;

Phil Knight became the first student-athlete to try a Bowerman original. In a letter to Knight dated 8 August 1958, Bowerman suggested a weight-training programme and running schedule. He closed the letter with a postscript: "If you have a pair of shoes that you think would make good flats, send them down to me. They will be ready for you when school starts". Bowerman fitted a handmade pair with an upper made from white rubber-coated fabric—"the kind you'd use for a tablecloth you could sponge off", he explained—to Knight's size. Knight says Bowerman chose him to try the shoes because he "wasn't one of the best runners on the team. Bowerman knew he could use me as a guinea pig without much risk".&nbsp; Whatever the reasoning, the young runner tested the shoes at training one evening but didn't get to wear them for long. His teammate Otis Davis spotted the prototype and wanted to give it a try. He liked the shoes so much he didn't give them back. In fact, Davis went on to win a conference championship and a gold medal in the 400 metres at the 1960 Olympic Games in Bowerman-made shoes. Moving forwards, Bowerman custom fit shoes to his runners by drawing an outline of their feet, measuring widths and noting individual features, such as an extended heel or slim ankle. He experimented with dozens of textiles—kangaroo leather, velvet, deer hide, snakeskin and even fish skin—to find the ideal lightweight, stretchy and resilient material, churning out new creations on a weekly basis. As his prototypes grew more refined and reliable, he continued to seek alliances with footwear companies, to no avail. In an August 1960 letter to a Portland company requesting steel for spikes, Bowerman wrote: "Most American shoemakers are not interested in what we track coaches think about track shoes. The best shoes … at this time are made by the Germans. Their sole material is not too good, and I can either replace their sole or I can make my own shoe. I don't think there is any question, certainly in my own mind there is not, that I now have the best shoe in the world—if I could just find some good American shoemaker to make it".

A shoe in the door

This opportunity finally arrived when Knight forged a relationship with Onitsuka in 1964, based on the belief that less expensive Japanese-made running shoes could perform as well as standard-bearer German shoes. Subsequently, he and Bowerman invested 50–50 in the business of importing and selling running shoes, opening a path for Bowerman's own ideas. The coach expressed his optimism in a letter to Onitsuka in May 1964: " I hope that your arrangements with Mr Knight would be such that I would be free to turn over the ideas that I have worked out on track shoes&nbsp;".Bowerman spent the following summer designing and in October travelled with his wife, Barbara, to Tokyo for the 1964 Olympics Games, where three of his Oregon runners were competing. The couple stayed an extra week so that Bowerman could meet with Onitsuka founder and CEO Kihachiro Onitsuka as well as S Morimoto, a company executive. Bowerman explained his ideas and toured factories to study the cutting and stitching machines. He gained confidence in the Japanese shoemaking process and established relationships with the two leaders, ensuring a receptive audience for his future prototypes and suggestions.

The dawn of Cortez

Bowerman's first breakthrough with Tiger shoes surfaced the following spring, in 1965, as the indirect result of an athletics competition. At the competition, University of Oregon distance runner and future Olympic marathoner Kenny Moore moved wide in an 880-metre race, into the path of a passing teammate. The misstep resulted in a spike-inflicted gash on the outside of his foot. That injury led to a stress fracture and one of Bowerman's most enduring inventions. Early in Moore's recovery, the runner trained in the Onitsuka Tiger TG-22, a high-jump shoe that Blue Ribbon Sports mistakenly sold as a running shoe. When Moore's X-ray showed a break across the third metatarsal, Bowerman asked to see his shoes and promptly ripped them apart. They had spongy cushioning in the heel and forefoot but zero arch support. "If you set out to engineer a shoe to bend metatarsals until they snap, you couldn't do much better than this", Bowerman growled. "Not only that, the outer sole rubber wears away like cornbread".&nbsp; To correct the TG-22, Bowerman fashioned a running shoe with a cushiony innersole, soft sponge rubber in the forefoot and on the top of the heel, hard sponge rubber in the middle of the heel and a firm rubber outsole. In June 1965, he sent Onitsuka instructions and samples for the shoe.

A month later, Morimoto responded, confirming that he was producing a training shoe to the specifications. But, Onitsuka had "some opinion as to the inserted sponge rubber in the heel". Despite the objections, Bowerman pushed for the placement of sponge rubber in the heel, stating that it would help alleviate Achilles tendon issues. That summer, Moore rebounded from his stress fracture and logged more than 1,000 miles in Bowerman's latest creations. Early Onitsuka prototypes featured two distinct pads in the heel and the ball of the foot, and a narrow heel. This eventually morphed into the full-length midsole Bowerman had originally conceived, a feature that ultimately became a major selling point for the shoe.Consequently, Onitsuka introduced the Bowerman-engineered Tiger Cortez, which an early 1967 catalogue explained as: "Designed to be the finest long-distance shoe in the world. Soft sponge midsole through ball and heel absorbs road shock; high-density outer sole for extra miles of wear".

Consumers loved it. The Cortez was the first stable, comfortable shoe for the roads. It looked cool and debuted as running emerged as an American pastime, popularised by Bowerman and his 1967 book "Jogging". And when Knight and Bowerman stopped importing and distributing running shoes through Blue Ribbon Sports and launched Nike as a designer and maker of athletic shoes, the Cortez silhouette carried over to the new brand. It also earned Bowerman a patent for its innovative continuously cushioned midsole. In July 1973, Runner's World called the Nike Cortez "the most popular long-distance training shoe in the US".

Waffle windfall

The Cortez, however, was just the first of Bowerman's celebrated inventions, which came to comprise eight registered patents, including shoes with an external heel counter, improved spike placement and a cushioned spike plate. It was also just the first success in his enduring quest to create the lightest running shoe possible.&nbsp;"He thought running shoes could be better", Nike's first full-time employee Jeff Johnson says about Bowerman's early&nbsp;innovations. "He challenged accepted notions of traction, cushioning, biomechanics&nbsp;and even of anatomy itself".Bowerman next sought to manifest a shoe with excellent traction on multiple surfaces, without metal spikes. The solution came over breakfast in 1970, as he&nbsp;contemplated the syrup-cradling depressions of the waffle on his plate. "What if you reversed the pattern and formed a material with raised waffle-grid nubs?", he wondered. He subsequently commandeered the family waffle maker and substituted batter for melted urethane. Unfortunately, Bowerman initially forgot to grease the waffle maker with an anti-stick agent, and it glued shut. Despite this setback, he persevered&nbsp;and fashioned a flexible, springy and lightweight rubber material with a raised, gridded pattern and grip traction.&nbsp;The Blue Ribbon Sports crew raced to debut the Waffle sole at the upcoming 1972 US Olympic athletics trials in Eugene. They had nylon uppers flown in from Japan to pair with Waffle soles hand-cut from sheets of rubber made in Eugene. Early Blue Ribbon Sports employee Geoff Hollister glued the components together, creating shoes for a handful of trial competitors to wear during training or on the infield at the Hayward Field athletics stadium.The hand-built shoes were dubbed the Moon Shoe due to the distinctive imprint they made in the dirt, which resembled the lunar footprints left behind by American astronauts during the era's historic Apollo missions. The first iterations were crude, but runners liked the feel and traction of the Waffle sole and word of the invention quickly spread. Bowerman further refined the concept and developed the iconic Waffle Trainer in 1974.&nbsp;

The rubber studs of the Waffle sole offered give and cushioning that appealed to both elite athletes and everyday runners. The shoes, as TIME magazine wrote, were "grabbed by the army of weekend jocks suffering from bruised feet". The Waffle Trainer placed Nike on the global athletic footwear map, setting the stage for unparalleled growth. Bowerman's legacy as an original thinker and innovator will forever be linked with the Waffle sole, which like many brilliant inventions is so simple and intuitive it resonates immediately and broadly. Versions of it are still employed today in Nike footwear, as are Bowerman's many other contributions to running shoe innovation, including the raised heel, the nylon upper and the continuous midsole.&nbsp;Nike's footwear ideal has evolved, but Bowerman's preoccupation with creating products that enable athletes to perform at their highest potential continues to fuel Nike's culture of innovation. Contemporary examples can be found in footwear technologies such as the Nike Free articulated outsole and the compressive woven-in support of Nike Flyknit uppers.&nbsp;

Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman's quest to create footwear to improve athlete performance is a driving force for Nike's ever-evolving approach to product innovation.

Innovation

Bill Bowerman: Nike's original innovator

In 1973, two years after the Nike brand was born and the first Swoosh adorned shoes, the nascent footwear company signed its first star runner. The phenomenal Oregon native held multiple American distance records, competed on athletics' greatest stage in Munich in 1972 and appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated as "America's Distance Prodigy". The prodigy was Steve Prefontaine, America's best-known athlete at age 22. He possessed warrior determination and ran each race as if his life depended on it. His competitive fire, gutsy race tactics and inherent charisma charmed crowds and inspired up-and-coming runners to stick with the sport and give it their all.&nbsp;

On track for greatness

At 15, competing for Marshfield High School in Coos Bay, Oregon, Prefontaine set his first national record, running the 2-mile event in 8:41.5. He won back-to-back state cross-country championships in 1968–1969, and went undefeated in cross-country and athletics in his junior and senior years. Heavily recruited by top running schools during his senior year, Prefontaine was swayed by a handwritten note from University of Oregon head coach Bill Bowerman. "It said if I came to Oregon, he'd make me into the best distance runner ever", Prefontaine recalled. "That was all I needed to hear".

While training under Bowerman and assistant coach Bill Dellinger at Oregon beginning in 1969, Prefontaine won seven NCAA titles (three in cross-country, 1970–71, '73; and four in the three-mile distance in athletics, 1970–73). In Pac-8 Conference athletics competition, he won three-mile titles during each of his four years at Oregon, plus the mile in 1971. At home at Hayward Field during his collegiate career and beyond, he notched a remarkable 35 out of 38 victories between 1970 and 1975.&nbsp;

Prefontaine's ascendancy came at a time when running was far from mainstream. Drivers unwilling to share the road routinely yelled and threw rubbish at runners as they sped past. Prefontaine helped changed that attitude from annoyance to admiration. On the strength of his indisputable achievement and winning personality, he was the first person to make running cool. His association with Nike helped establish the Swoosh as a trusted running brand and transform the company from national shoe distributor to worldwide brand.

As a competitor at the University of Oregon, Prefontaine had considerable exposure to Blue Ribbon Sports and Nike footwear (at the time, products were branded Nike but the company name was still the original Blue Ribbon Sports, or BRS). In the summer of 1973, Nike co-founders Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman extended a $5,000 yearly stipend to help offset Prefontaine's training expenses and to relieve him of occasional bartending shifts at the popular Paddock tavern. In between athletics workouts and long runs along the McKenzie River, Prefontaine put in time at the BRS shop in Eugene. Prefontaine became well versed in BRS and its products and he was an ace pitchman. He printed up business cards with the title National Director of Public Affairs, and began travelling around the Pacific Northwest sharing training tips and encouragement to athletes while introducing them to new Nike running shoes.&nbsp;

The start of Swoosh sports marketing

"The amazing thing about Pre was he was a hell of a student of the sport and he just loved digging and learning about things", said Geoff Hollister, a runner who also competed at the University of Oregon under Bowerman and became Nike's third employee. Hollister managed the BRS shop in Eugene, and he and Prefontaine became close friends who shared interests in architecture, sports cars and, of course, running.&nbsp; The pair visited secondary schools, universities, sports shops and running clubs. "Every place we went, Pre would take time to go for a jog with the kids. He would analyse their form and talk to them", Hollister said. Prefontaine easily related to teens and was a natural spokesman for the sport. In his book "Out of Nowhere", Hollister remembered a talk Prefontaine had with students at West Albany:&nbsp;

Prefontaine took that same personal approach when connecting with athletes from afar, helping to create an early blueprint for Nike's sports marketing. He introduced the sport's elite to Nike products, sending shoes, along with personalised notes and his business card, to running friends around the world. "It was totally his own idea", said Hollister. Prefontaine dispatched boxes to Mary Decker in San Diego; New Zealand's John Walker and Dick Quax; to Brendan Foster in England; and Kenya's Kip Keino. "All those people ended up wearing Nike shoes", said Hollister. In April of 1975, Prefontaine sent a note and a pair of '73 Nike Bostons to the relatively unknown runner Bill Rodgers. The shoes' arrival created a stir among his teammates at the Greater Boston Track Club. "You'd hear about Nike shoes or see pictures, but it was the first pair that I'd seen in person", recalled Alberto Salazar, who was a secondary school student in Boston and a teammate of Rodgers at the time. "He brought them to the track, and we were all holding them and passing them around. Everyone was real excited not only because it was a Nike shoe—which was kind of neat because it was different—but because Steve Prefontaine had sent the shoes with a note". A few weeks later, Rodgers wore them in the local city marathon. He finished first.

Legacy

Prefontaine is also remembered for furthering the cause of American amateur athletes, who were boxed in by the lopsided rules of the American Athletics Union (AAU). In the 1970s, athletes who wanted to participate in the Olympic Games were required to remain amateurs, making it difficult but necessary to train at their sport and earn a living doing something else. The AAU controlled runners' competition schedules and took the lion's share of appearance fees due to athletes. Prefontaine gave up offers upwards of $200,000 to go pro to preserve his eligibility for Montreal 1976, and instead collected a $3 per diem—the maximum amount allowed by the AAU.&nbsp;

He continually challenged the AAU and spoke out about the inequity, even when it put his eligibility to compete in jeopardy. Prefontaine preserved his amateur status but he never made it to Montreal. His last competition was 29 May 1975, in a race he helped organise against members of the Finnish national team and distance heavy hitters such as Frank Shorter. Competing in the 5000m, Prefontaine trailed Shorter the first two miles, then, with three laps to go, accelerated to a 63-second pace. In front of a Hayward Field crowd of 7,000, he finished with a 60.3 last lap and a winning time of 13:23.8, just off his own American record. He ran a victory lap, attended the University of Oregon athletics awards banquet and spent the rest of the evening hanging out and celebrating with friends. The biggest athletics star in the country came to a tragic end later, just after midnight, while driving home—his life cut short by a car accident at age 24.&nbsp; His legacy is multifaceted. To generations of athletes at all levels, he embodies the philosophy of training incredibly hard and going all out in competition. For Nike, he was both a muse as an athlete and a trailblazer who pioneered a highly original and personal way of inspiring athletes with the brand. For fellow runners hamstrung by the AAU, Prefontaine was a leader who helped turn the tide towards professionalism. After Prefontaine's death, others joined Nike in taking up his cause, ultimately leading to the abolishment of the AAU by the US Congress in 1978. It was perhaps his most important legacy off the track.

Prefontaine's competitive fire, gutsy race tactics and inherent charisma charmed crowds and inspired up-and-coming runners to stick with the sport and give it their all.

People

How Steve Prefontaine set the pace for Nike

From the archive

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Bill Bowerman: Nike's original innovator

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