When the most decorated 100-metre sprinter ever stepped to the line for a final time, she told herself what she knew: that she was prepared, powerful and this race was hers—for her. The next handful of seconds were to honour everything that had brought her to this moment.Green, yellow and black hair whipping behind her—a self-proclaimed "daughter of the soil", who chose to wear the colours of her nation's flag for her final finish—gold-hued&nbsp;nails splayed in front of her, <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-celebrates-shelly-ann-fraser-pryce" target="_blank">Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce</a> exploded off the blocks in the World Athletics Championship final in a capacity-filled Japan National Stadium in Tokyo. She ended her 100-metre career in the same way she began racing 18 years ago in Japan—with fierce speed, strength and composure. It was a bold tribute to Jamaica, the nation whose unyielding support has carried her through two decades at the top of the sport.In her decades of dominance—from becoming the first Caribbean woman to win Olympic gold in the 100 metres in 2008, to returning as World Champion in 2019 after giving birth to her son, Zyon—Shelly-Ann has embodied the power of duality.&nbsp;The ability to have longevity in athletics's shortest, most intense discipline; exuding femininity and self-expression in a physically demanding sport; proving motherhood and greatness can coexist.What athletes everywhere, and especially young girls, can take from Shelly-Ann's lead: the courage to run your own race, on your terms. To trust that setbacks don't define you, only your response to them. And the assurance that, if you believe in yourself and work with discipline, harmony is possible. Dreams and family, career and legacy.For that and for the now 276 incredible races and finishing line moments, thank you, Shelly-Ann.Below, go behind the scenes of the GOAT's final meet days in Tokyo.

The shoes. The hair. The finish. At the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Shelly-Ann, a five-time world champion, ended her career her way.

Sofieke van Bilsen is a 29-year-old Dutch photographer with a passion for storytelling through imagery. She is the in-house photographer for the German women's national football team, and was team photographer for the German Olympic Team in Paris 2024. She works closely with Nike athletes such as Faith Kipyegon, Eliud Kipchoge and Sifan Hassan.In her photography, she aims to create compelling visual narratives, focusing on the deep connection between emotion and athleticism. She strives to capture the raw moments behind the scenes, the untold stories of the journey and everything in between, bringing the spirit of sport to life.Sofieke's personality creates instant connections with people, and she is loved by the athletes she works with. Her relaxed and enthusiastic personality complements an incredible skill level and the ability to work in high-pressure environments for athletes.

Sofieke van Bilsen

Photo essay

Icon Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Ran Her Final 100 Metre On Her Terms

Over the course of his career, LeBron James has shared his passion for the game globally, partnering with Nike to travel throughout Greater China during his offseason, galvanizing a nation in its love for basketball and hoops culture. Just as LeBron's career has evolved through different eras, his tours have represented different values over the many times he's visited since 2005. Below are some of his most memorable moments in the country.

2005–2009

LeBron began his debut tour in Beijing in August of 2005. He was invited to watch the awards ceremony of the Nike Battlegrounds tournament, but he'd depart as more than just a spectator. From the moment he stepped down in China, he believed his tour could become a cross-cultural exchange rooted in a shared love of hoops and a mission to inspire the next generation of young players in China. "Basketball is not only a sport, it's also a bridge that connects people", he said.&nbsp;"This is a great learning experience for everyone. I hope I can continue to help grow the game globally and inspire the youth in China to reach their dreams".

LeBron's legacy in China is woven into special China-specific iterations of his signature footwear. In 2007, LeBron James appeared alongside NIKE, Inc.'s then-President & CEO Mark Parker to debut his Nike Zoom LeBron V "China" colourway.

LeBron returned to Beijing in 2009 after his MVP season, where he enjoyed a hero's welcome. As part of his trip, he donated equipment and provided scholarships for the Zhenhua School, a school for the children of migrant workers in suburban Beijing.

To celebrate his season, LeBron was presented with an exclusive pair of the Nike Air Max LeBron VII, featuring a Shenyang-inspired design dubbed "Loyalty" created by the local artist Ray Lei, and a Shanghai-inspired design dubbed "Family", created by the local artist Sic.

2011–2015

LeBron embraced his role as a global ambassador for the game, focusing on the opportunity to inspire China's young players. In 2011, his tour expanded to eight days over four cities, promoting grassroots basketball through a series of skill clinics and tournaments.

In 2012, with a fresh gold medal to pair with his championship ring, LeBron James made a triumphant arrival in Beijing to kick off a four-day tour as part of the&nbsp;Find Your Greatness campaign. "Greatness is defined by how much you want to put into what you do", said LeBron. "Greatness comes with victory. It also comes with being able to come back from adversity".

In 2013, LeBron returned to China with plenty to celebrate: his second straight NBA championship and MVP awards for both the regular season and the Finals.

In 2014, LeBron James was the first mentor to announce the roster for the Nike RISE, designed to help players raise their competitive game and improve their skill.

In 2015, Nike RISE 2015 evolved with LED Courts and motion-tracking drills to create a pinnacle training experience, teach the fundamentals of basketball and push the boundaries of sports training.

An emotional finale saw four players chosen to represent China at the World Streetball Championships.

2016–2019

After winning another NBA title in 2016, LeBron entered Guangzhou to a massive championship parade, the streets flanked by tens of thousands of fans, many of them in Cavs #23 jerseys. It was a signal for just how widely James's legacy had expanded throughout Asia.&nbsp;His More Than an Athlete campaign inspired young players to see basketball as one of many tools for affecting social change.

After a warm welcome from thousands of fans, he spent most of his time in Beijing working out with and coaching members of the Chinese Junior National basketball team.

Visiting primary schools throughout Beijing, LeBron shared his personal basketball experiences with young athletes, emphasising the role that hard work, dedication and self-belief played in his path to success.

In 2018, the first day of his "More Than an Athlete" tour in Shanghai began with a panel discussion with students at the Shanghai Theatre&nbsp;Academy, and ended with a park shootaround. Hundreds of fans gathered outside the court to watch him play, hoping to catch a glimpse of the icon.

This month, LeBron flew to China for his "Forever King Tour", his 15th in the country and marking the 20th anniversary of tours in Asia. There, he joined some of the world's most passionate hoopers and basketball fans, reiterating his commitment to giving back to the game across the world.

Over the course of his career, LeBron James has shared his passion for the game globally, partnering with Nike to travel throughout Greater China during his offseason, galvanizing a nation in its love for basketball and hoops culture.

Journey of an icon: 20 years of LeBron James in China

Hours of powering up steep ascents and navigating gnarly descents. Whipping mountain winds, glaring direct sun and biting evening temps. Getting mentally right with the fact that the next aid station is far, far away. Ultra trail running can sound like a gruelling, relentless sport reserved for the wildest, most hardcore athletes among us.According to our <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-acg-all-conditions-racing-department" target="_blank">All Conditions Racing Department</a> runners—six of whom just conquered pinnacle UTMB races across the French, Italian and Swiss Alps, on trails spanning 15 to 174 kilometres, with elevation gains of 1,200 to nearly 10,000 metres—the grit, determination, joy and freedom trail running gives you are worth every ounce of work. See for yourself.

<h3>ROSS GOLLAN</h3>Race: Experience Trail Courmayeur (ETC); 15K with 1,200m elevation gain Global finish rank: 29th

<h3>MARIE NIVET</h3>Race: ETC; 15K with 1,200m elevation gain Global women's finish rank: 7th

CESARE MAESTRIRace: ETC; 15K with 1,200m elevation gain Global finish rank: 2nd

<h3>BAPTISTE COATANTIEC</h3>Race: Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB); 174K with nearly 10,000m elevation gain Global finish rank: 11th

<h3>ANTHONY COSTALES</h3>Race: Courmayeur—Champex—Chamonix (CCC); 101K with more than 6,050m elevation gain Global finish rank: 15th

<h3>DREW HOLMEN</h3>Race: CCC; 101K with more than 6,050m elevation gain Global finish rank: 3rd

Powering up steep ascents. Navigating gnarly descents. Whipping mountain winds. Ultra trail running is a relentless sport. But the payoff is well worth the grind.

Ultra trail running can take everything you've got—and give you even more

About Nike—stories from inside NIKE, Inc.

Words: <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="/company/people/rachel-cavanaugh-contributing-writer" target="_blank" class="ql-size-small">Rachel Cavanaugh</a> Images: <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="/company/people/dan-vernon-contributing-photographer" target="_blank" class="ql-size-small">Dan Vernon</a> and <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="/company/people/sofieke-van-bilsen-contributing-photographer" target="_blank" class="ql-size-small">Sofieke van Bilsen</a>

The boldest ideas don't begin with guarantees. They begin with a dream—and an audacious commitment to make it real. That's exactly how Nike FlyWeb, the company's newest performance material, came to life. The first-of-its-kind 3D-printing innovation was born through years of experimentation and a resolve to do what had never been done before.&nbsp;Nike FlyWeb represents a radical shift in how performance apparel is made and what it can feel like.Unlike traditional athletic apparel, which is typically knit or woven from yarn, FlyWeb is made from TPU—a soft, pliable polymer—and 3D-printed to form the desired product.&nbsp;Three-dimensional printing is nothing new for the footwear industry or Nike. "This is, however, the first time Nike has applied the manufacturing method to high-performance sports apparel for an athlete", says Janett Nichol, Nike VP of innovation.&nbsp;

"What works on a shoe doesn't just translate to something you wear on your body", she explains. "It took years of re-engineering—not just the materials but the design approach itself—to make FlyWeb feel soft, breathable and beautiful enough for apparel".The first product Nike design teams chose to tackle in the new material? One that hasn't changed in material form since its inception: the bra.The Nike FlyWeb Bra is an ode to minimalism. The FlyWeb material is one single, seamless layer, built through computational design so that Nike designers could control the fit and support down to the millimetre, adjusting density, airflow and stretch across different zones of the garment."We had to re-engineer everything—dismantling what we knew, then putting it back together—to make it wearable next to skin", says Nichol.

The result is something athletes have never felt before. The Nike FlyWeb Bra doesn't just reduce bulk or manage moisture more efficiently. It creates an entire sensory shift. For women athletes, it eliminates the multi-layer barrier found in most sports bras, unlocking airflow and comfort in ways traditional construction simply can't."It's soft. It's light—so light, it feels like you're not wearing anything at all", adds Nichol. "That's the number 1 thing testers tell us: it disappears on your body, yet somehow delivers incredible support".That support doesn't come from compression or layering but rather from the structure itself: the computationally designed pattern is specifically engineered to be denser in areas that need more containment.

Nike FlyWeb fluidly engages when the athlete moves, creating responsive athletic support without relying on seams, straps or extra material. That means pure freedom of movement."You can actually feel the air on your chest", says Nichol. "Most women have never experienced that while running. We don't even think about it because it's just not something we've ever expected to feel".On 26 June, in Paris, Faith Kipyegon will attempt to become the first woman in history to break the 4-minute mile, an effort that's been dubbed "Breaking4". And as she takes to the track for the legacy-defining attempt, she'll be wearing a one-of-a-kind sports bra made from the breakthrough material.

Nike FlyWeb material will debut during Faith Kipyegon's historic attempt to break the 4-minute mile.

Because of its light, breathable design, Faith's Nike FlyWeb Bra will help her body stay cooler during her all-out sprint.

Faith's FlyWeb Bra has a gossamer-soft hand feel and weight that's barely there.

It was her ambition—and the scale of that goal—that helped push Nike FlyWeb from bra prototype to bespoke product."Everyone was a thought partner; we really put our heads together", says Lisa Gibson, senior product manager, apparel innovation. "And when you have a team working in synergy, believing in Faith and this moment, that's when things start to magically unlock. It's that Nike magic".

FlyWeb's debut isn't only a material milestone. It's the start of a new era in how performance apparel is made.What began as a moonshot of its own—an experiment to reimagine how we think about apparel—quickly accelerated into a breakthrough once Kipyegon's goal came into view.&nbsp;"We knew that it was an opportunity for us to look at what we had in our arsenal and what we could really use to help her break this goal", says Nichol. "We realised a gift had been dropped in our laps and it was up to us to rise to the moment".Now&nbsp;that the material is here, its potential is beginning to unfold.&nbsp;"We're just scratching the surface", says Nichol. "This is a true unlock, not just for bras but for how we design and build high-performance apparel going forward. It opens the door to entirely new ideas for how athletes experience sport through what they wear".

Featherweight, soft and breathable, Nike FlyWeb—a first-of-its-kind 3D-printing innovation—is a sports material like no other.

Feature

Innovation

The future of performance apparel is here

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.

Baseline helps provide foundational knowledge of an athlete's body, connecting anatomical structure, foot and lower-body mechanics and functional movement.

The three-dimensional foot scale measures foot shape during normal standing. The reported sizing can be a starting point for shoe or product fit.

Barefoot walking helps asses areas of high and low pressure underfoot. Seeing these areas of elevated pressure can help uncover an athlete's gait pattern.

Range of motion in the ankles and the toes, tested in different directions, can help determine joint function.

Performance jumps can be an indication of lower-body strength, power and asymmetry.

Data from Baseline testing goes beyond describing an athlete's current state. It can also shed light on an athlete's past, like what sport they played or what injuries they sustained.

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.

John Shiel photographs the truth of Innovation—unpolished, intimate and in progress. He explores the choreography of art, science and athletes, documenting an honest record of Nike Innovation's inner life, covering the rebels, dreamers and makers who are forging the future of sport.He leads the Creative Studio in Nike Innovation, tracking the next frontier of Innovation stories that have the power to inspire athletes everywhere.

John Shiel

Nike Sports Science

Next Level

The NSRL Baseline Testing

A single Nike Aero-FIT shirt begins as recycled yarn on a spool. Before it reaches an athlete on the world's biggest stage, it will move through a specialised creation process—knit on a proprietary circular machine; dyed in precise lots; and extracted, finished, sublimated, cut, printed and hand-stitched panel by panel.&nbsp;&nbsp;Each step exists to protect the performance built into the material itself, a highly texturised knit that combines open and closed mesh zones to move air across the body, lift the fabric off the skin and deliver more than twice the airflow of legacy Nike fabrics. That's not nothing during a summer of sport that's delivered some of the hottest conditions footballers have ever seen.&nbsp;Fitting, then, that <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-aero-fit-official-images" target="_blank">Aero-FIT</a> is also Nike's first elite performance apparel made from 100 percent textile waste. Nike's contract manufacturing suppliers use a textile-to-textile system enabled by advanced chemical recycling, creating a circular process that produces recycled polyester yarn as good as virgin material.&nbsp;That material comes together through a blend of technology and human expertise, yarn and machine, hand and eye, made for the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/collections/nike-football-unveils-2026-federation-kits-featuring-aero-fit-performance-cooling-technology" target="_blank">athletes taking the pitch</a> and the fans standing with them in the same colours.See exactly how here.

When you're playing for your country, nothing should distract you, least of all heat and sweat.

Nike Football

The Making of Aero-FIT: The Material Innovation Keeping Footballers Cooler on the Pitch

See What Drives Us

Stories from inside NIKE, Inc.

Story Landing

Short Stories

For Yao Miao, becoming the "Queen of Trail Running" in China took everything she had. Yao grew up in a small farming village in China's Guizhou Province, the youngest of six daughters. She often helped her parents, working long hours in the rice fields, but even as a child she knew she wanted to pursue a future outside of her rural community. That opportunity came in middle school. Yao left home when she was selected as one of four students from her area to attend a state-run sports school for future elite athletes. The early days were tough. Leaving her family wasn't easy, and she often felt lonely and homesick. Her body struggled to adapt to a kind of training she had never done before. But it was there that she discovered her passion for trail running.Overtime, her natural resilience paid off. She pushed through injuries and setbacks to become Asia's first three-time Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) Finals champion, one of the most celebrated trail-running races in the world.Now, as she joins the ACG <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-acg-all-conditions-racing-department" target="null">All Conditions Racing Department</a>, ACG's roster of elite trail running athletes, Yao looks back on where her journey began, the victories and challenges along the way and how her ACG partnership will help reach a new generation of athletes.

My hometown helped shape me into an elite athlete. There are many small mountains, and I played there when I was young, so I grew used to that terrain. That experience helped me become a strong trail runner. I really enjoy running in China's mountain environments, especially running on the Great Wall.It's important to know that you don't have to reach your goals immediately. At sport school, I focused mainly on running and was part of an organised team. But after graduating in 2016, I was not chosen to join a professional team or university. So, I started working. I handed out flyers at a gym, then I helped my sister at her makeup shop. I felt lost. I wasn't training like an athlete anymore.I wasn't interested in anything but running. Eventually, that rejection was motivating for me. I had the opportunity to enter a trail race. While I didn't finish, that failure to finish made me feel I needed to come back to trail running. My goal was to become the best trail runner of all time. I made up my mind to keep working and continue racing. I believed I could succeed and I wanted to prove it.One of my most challenging races was in 2019 at UTMB. During the 168km run, I had a period where I lost my vision. I was racing so much that my body couldn't bear the strain of so many competitions. I couldn't finish the race, and the organisers asked me to quit. I was very nervous because I worried I might never see again and not be able to return to trail running. The vision loss was only temporary, but I felt like I was losing confidence in the sport.

Getting my footing in trail running took time, but that journey was so rewarding. After my first championship in 2018, I knew I had the talent and motivation to become an elite trail runner. I kept chasing another win but couldn't seem to get one. I struggled in 2019 with several DNFs and stopped racing in 2020. But I still had this intense passion for the sport, so I came back in 2023. I finally won again in 2024, the OCC-UTMB, which was my most satisfying victory. I was back! The hard work paid off, and I felt like I could finally move forward.For me, the most important mindset is love for the sport. I've faced many challenges, but because I love trail running, I've been able to keep going and become who I am today.

I want trail runners to think about how their actions affect the environment. Trail running is becoming popular very quickly. However, many runners still don't think enough about protecting their environment. I encourage runners to care for the outdoors and our planet—stay on marked trails, carry out their trash properly, respect the wildlife. Protecting these spaces is part of being a responsible runner. I know it's not easy to educate everyone, but I can start with myself and help model good behaviour. Last year, I helped organise events focused on environmental protection and I hope, in the future, more people will join me.I know how much I can do with ACG to build my dream and support the next generation. I'm proud to launch the Nike-supported "Boundless Girls with Yao Miao" initiative that will help more girls in many Chinese primary and secondary schools access sports. I want to inspire teenage girls who grow up in underdeveloped areas like I did to find their confidence and know that the world is vast. Sport has the power to open new doors for them.

Her rise from rural China to three‑time UTMB Finals champion—and now member of the ACG All Conditions Racing Department—is a story of endurance, belief and relentless dedication to the sport.

For the win

Trail Runner Yao Miao Is Running Down New Goals With ACG

Basketball has never seen a decade like the 1980s. With a deep roster of incandescent stars and bitter rivalries in both the pro and university games, the sport's growth curve had never looked so steep, and may never again.In some aspects, Nike rode the wave of the round-ball revolution. In others, the Swoosh was out in front, fuelling—and occasionally suffering the effects of—the money and fame that pulsed through the sport.But before signature shoes, before billion-dollar categories, before basketball became central to Nike's identity, there was a foothold to secure.That foothold began in US university gyms.In March of 1979, the NCAA championship game between Larry Bird's Indiana State and Magic Johnson's Michigan State captivated the country. It remains the highest-rated televised university basketball game in history. A year later, ESPN launched with a heavy diet of university basketball programming. By 1985, the NCAA tournament would expand to 64 teams.US university basketball was no longer regional. It was televised, expanding and captivating the country.Nike was already moving.

University 101

Nike began its push into university basketball in the late 1970s with the help of a personality named Sonny.By then, the company's foray into the NBA was already underway. But aside from the University of Oregon, the university game had largely been ignored. That changed in the summer of 1977, when John Paul "Sonny" Vaccaro met with Rob Strasser, Phil Knight and a handful of others to pitch a sandal-type basketball shoe.The shoe idea was a dud; Vaccaro, however, had an idea that would stick.

Vaccaro's strategy: create connections. Through the Dapper Dan high school tournament he had been running in Pittsburgh since 1965—essentially the first countrywide All-Star showcase—he built a network inside the coaching ranks. And the university business was ripe for the picking. In the early to mid-1970s, only a handful of elite coaches were paid anything. A few received lecture fees. Converse had sent Georgetown's John Thompson to Italy in 1977 to run a clinic. But most coaches with shoe deals received little more than discounted products.Nike saw an opportunity. NCAA rules barred companies from paying players, but coaches were fair game. Provide products. Build relationships. Establish loyalty.

With that philosophy in mind, things moved quickly. By November 1978, Nike had 17 universities on board. By 1980, it had 71.What began as a gamble was starting to look like a sure bet. But contracts were only the first step. Growth gave Nike reach, but it still needed credibility.

The Lab

No programme encapsulated the 1980s university basketball scene and Nike's growing presence within it quite like the Georgetown Hoyas under head coach John Thompson, whose programme became one of the most formidable forces in the sport.

While serving as Nike's unofficial flagship, Georgetown made the Final Four in 1982, 1984 and 1985, winning the national championship in 1984 and claiming five Big East regular-season titles during the decade.Thompson first met Phil Knight on a trip to Nike in August 1980. "The esprit de corps manifested by your people is most impressive", he wrote in a letter to Knight soon after. Following a falling out with a close friend at Converse, Thompson signed with Nike and the relationship deepened quickly."What you found out about Phil, there were certain people he didn't cross", said Ron Hill, who ran the basketball programme in the mid-1980s. "If John Thompson barked, Phil didn't want to hear it. 'Just get him what he wants'. There were a few of those, not many".Georgetown became a lab of sorts for Nike ideas.Take the Legend, released in 1982. It featured thick, durable leather that took time to break in but was ultimately comfortable. It introduced coloured soles and linings, a perforated toe, a flex point at the lacing break and a hook on the back—small evolutions that felt distinctive at the time."Legend was the shoe when I came to the company", said Mike Caster, Nike's basketball marketing manager in the mid-1980s. "I remember everybody played in that shoe. It was just an awesome basketball shoe".

Thompson's Hoyas were fiercely loyal to it. So when Nike executives approached him about switching Georgetown into softer-leather Air Force models or the upcoming Dunk, Thompson refused. He preferred the thicker material, and he wanted Georgetown to stand apart. Wearing the same shoe as a dozen other programmes was not acceptable."He said, 'I'm not wearing anybody else's shoes, number one; and number two, I want it exactly this way'", Hill recalled.By then, the Legend had been discontinued and the name was no longer available. So designer Mike Aveni modified the design slightly, adding a heel counter stamped with "NIKE", and created what became the Terminator. For Georgetown's player-only versions, "HOYAS" was stamped on the back instead, avoiding university royalties and reinforcing Thompson's demand for identity.The collaboration extended beyond footwear. In 1983, Thompson had Patrick Ewing wear a Nike undershirt in a nationally televised game against Virginia, featuring an illustration of the Legend on the sleeves. The NCAA objected, banning what it considered "free" on-court advertising.But the message was clear.Nike wasn't just supplying products. It was embedded inside one of the sport's most visible programmes, testing ideas, responding to a powerful coach and building trust on a national stage.

Be True to Your School

If Georgetown gave Nike credibility, March gave it scale.At the 1985 Final Four, Nike leaders Rob Strasser, Jack Joyce and members of the New Products team saw university passion up close. Students and fans lined up overnight to get into the games. University colours dominated the arenas. Allegiance was visible, tribal and loud.

They began to see something bigger than product placement. If Nike could create footwear in the actual colours of these programmes, fans might wear them as badges of identity.The success of the Air Jordan 1 and Jordan player trousers had already suggested that consumers would embrace bold colour. Now the idea moved to college and university basketball.The College Colours programme was born.

Conceived by Strasser, Joyce and a small internal team that included creative director Peter Moore and Mary Bodecker McGoldrick, the programme paired footwear, apparel and bags in coordinated university palettes. It began as part of the "Guns of August" sales push in June 1985, promising samples by August and carrying a simple directive: "Be True to Your School".

Twelve universities anchored the initial release: UNLV, Arizona, Iowa, Purdue, Michigan, St. John's, NC State, Georgia, Maryland, Syracuse, Georgetown and Kentucky.The centrepiece was a high-top basketball shoe originally sketched by Moore. At first called the College Colour High, it was, as Nike veteran Brad Johnson later said, "a mash-up of different shoes"—a common design practice at the time. Its outsole resembled the Air Jordan I and the Big Nike. Its upper echoed familiar silhouettes. It was built on the same last used for the Legend, considered one of Nike's best-fitting basketball forms.Eventually, the shoe took a name from that lineage.It became the Dunk.

College Colours disrupted a basketball footwear landscape that had largely been defined by white shoes with minimal colour. For the first time, university identity could be worn head to toe, on campus, in dorm rooms and in packed arenas during March.The Dunk's initial retail performance was moderate. The marketplace was suddenly crowded with colour after the Air Jordan I. But culturally, something had shifted. Nike had aligned itself not just with players and coaches, but with fan allegiance itself.The foothold in university basketball was no longer theoretical. It was visible—in blue and orange, in red and white, in navy and grey—on feet across the country.

March on the Main Stage

As the 1980s progressed, that visibility only intensified.Nike universities began advancing deeper into the NCAA tournament with increasing regularity. By 1985, the shift was undeniable: the entire Final Four—Villanova, Georgetown, St. John's and Memphis State—wore Nike.

The tournament had become the sport's national convention, and Nike was everywhere.By that point, Phil Knight reportedly asked what it would cost to sign every top-level programme in the country—an idea that never materialised but spoke volumes about how far the company had come in less than 10 years.Exposure in March did more than sell shoes. It cemented perception. University basketball was now national theatre, broadcast into living rooms across the country, and Nike was attached to some of its most high-profile programmes.The 1977 strategy—build through coaches, embed through relationships—was no longer speculative. It was unfolding in front of a national audience.

The Coaching Fraternity

The relationships that fuelled that rise extended beyond contracts.Each autumn, Phil Knight received envelope after envelope from university towns around the country containing handwritten notes on university letterhead thanking Nike for the summer trip and praising the company.

"The Nike company is simply amazing", wrote George Blaney of Holy Cross. "Not only are you aggressive, young and dynamic, but the company is actually concerned about people. I like that".Those letters followed Nike's annual university coaches trips, gatherings that were nominally about product evaluation but functioned as something deeper. Coaches met with designers. They discussed equipment. They compared notes. They built bonds both with the company and with each other.Clinics expanded the network further. Nike-sponsored events brought elite university coaches together with high school coaches and players, spreading influence and reinforcing the company's presence at every level of the game."It's about relationships, service and product", Ed Janka later recalled of the philosophy from the early days. "None is more important than the other".Service became a differentiator. Nike representatives were on the road constantly, visiting campuses, talking with trainers, building custom solutions when needed. While competitors sold stock products, Nike showed up.The approach required sustained time and investment. It proved effective.By the mid-1980s, being a "Nike university" meant more than wearing a logo. It meant belonging to a network, and one that connected product innovation, marketing visibility and personal relationships in ways the sport had never previously experienced.

A Proving Ground

Even as colour and culture captured attention, performance remained central.Georgetown's status as an informal laboratory was not cosmetic. Coaches demanded durability. Trainers offered feedback. Designers iterated.Models like the Legend and the Terminator reflected those conversations—incremental shifts in materials, structure and identity. Shoes were refined season by season, informed by the needs of university programmes competing at the highest level.

By the close of the decade, Nike universities had claimed multiple NCAA championships. The company that had started the 1977–78 season with a single university wearing its shoes had embedded itself across more than a hundred programmes.The experiment had scaled.Basketball's growth in the 1980s is often told through signature athletes and market-share battles. But before any of that came into focus, Nike's position inside the sport was built in university gyms.By the time the tournament lights grew brighter and basketball's commercial stakes escalated, Nike no longer needed to prove it belonged. It already did.

Basketball's growth in the 1980s is often told through signature athletes and market-share battles. But before any of that came into focus, Nike's position inside the sport was built on university courts.

Nike Heritage

Full-Court Press: How Nike Found Its Footing in University Basketball

For most of his life, John Rattray didn't spend much time thinking about neuroscience. He was too busy skateboarding.As a professional athlete in Encinitas, California, Rattray built his career inside the restless rhythm of skate culture—for 12 years, he travelled, filmed and chased the next session.But as injuries mounted and his pro career grew more uncertain, he began reflecting on the experiences that shape us.There was something about skateboarding that had provided a kind of foundation—not just for him, but for others around him.He wanted to know why.Now, years later, Rattray's curiosity has culminated&nbsp;in Your Brain on Sport (YBOS), a comic series that explores mental health and brain science through stories that young athletes can relate to.Developed with trauma experts and Nike researchers, the comic translates complex neuroscience into simple narratives that help athletes better understand stress, emotional regulation and well-being."My attempt with the comic is to encapsulate these ideas into cool little stories where you learn one small concept at a time", says Rattray. The goal is to break these concepts down into bite-size pieces, he says, and gently direct your mind. "I hope to deliver some clarity on how your brain and your nervous system work together and how you can use physical movement as one tool in your therapeutic toolkit".

With sketches by skate artist Jon Horner and writing by Rattray, youth counsellor Joel Pippus and neuroscientist Bruce Perry, PhD, MD, <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-unveils-new-grail-skate-shoe-nike-sb-air-force-1" target="_blank">Nike SB</a> now hosts two digital editions of the series so far: <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://ybos.nikesb.com/ybos-running" target="null">The Regulation of Running</a> and <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DVCRKcSEsUT/?img_index=1" target="null">Healing Through Hoops.</a>In the latter edition, Nike SB skateboarder Nicole Hause reflects on her own experience of navigating depression and therapy. The chapter, which also features Chicago-based youth basketball organisation Girls in the Game, examines how physical movement can help interrupt emotional spirals and bring your nervous system back into balance.&nbsp;While it may seem counterintuitive, Hause says that skateboarding isn't always the activity she turns to when she's feeling down."When you're a pro skater, sometimes skating can come with a lot of pressure", she explains. "There's this expectation you have of yourself, like you have to skate like a pro every day. If I'm already having a rough day, doing something simpler, like shooting hoops, helps me clear my mind. I don't get as upset if I don't make a basket as if I don't do a skate trick. It helps me get in my body more and less in my head".That insight is the starting point for the story, which illustrates how choosing a different activity can sometimes help your body shift gears and reset. The importance of the message—along with the opportunity to collaborate with Rattray—made the decision to participate an easy one for Hause."John is a skate legend", she says. "When I heard about the project, I instantly wanted to get involved".

The first edition of the comic, "The Regulation of Running", examines how cadence and repetitive movement can help athletes settle their nervous system.

The Regulation of Running

In "Healing Through Hoops", pro skater Nicole Hause reflects on her personal experience of navigating depression and therapy, and how basketball provides her with an outlet to reset.

Healing Through Hoops

"Your Brain on Sport"

The path to YBOS, however, began decades earlier.Rattray grew up in Aberdeen, Scotland, an oil town on the northeast coast, in a household shaped by addiction and instability. His father struggled with severe alcoholism, and life at home could be chaotic and unpredictable.Skateboarding became a lifeline. Within the skate scene, Rattray found what he now describes as a "consistent crew of young creatives"—a community that offered stability when little else did."I don't know where I would be if I hadn't found skating", he says.When Rattray was 13, his father died. By then, skating had already begun to anchor his teenage years. At the time, he didn't think about it in neuroscientific terms; he simply knew that being on a skateboard with friends made life feel more manageable.Years later, in 2011, Rattray's sister Katrina died by suicide. In that painful aftermath, he began to think more deeply about why skateboarding was a safe haven. He read about trauma, the nervous system and the long-term effects of childhood adversity. It was during that search that he encountered the work of Dr Perry, who would later help write the comic.

Reading Dr Perry's book What Happened to You?, Rattray was introduced to something the neuroscientist called the "neurosequential model"—a framework that connects early life experiences, stress and the body's regulatory systems.The discovery was a light-bulb moment.For the first time, Rattray had language for patterns he had seen throughout his life: the chaos of his childhood, the emotional weight carried by his family and the reason why skateboarding had provided such a powerful sense of stability."Why did nobody tell me about this?" he remembers thinking. "Because this explains everything I've experienced".

Today, Rattray's comic series is serving not only as a storytelling device, but also as a learning tool connected to Dr Perry's Neurosequential Model in Sport (NM-Sport),&nbsp;which applies his research to athletic environments.Among key concepts is how the brain responds to stress and how, in the right doses, challenge can actually help build resilience."One of the most important things to understand about the brain's stress systems is that moderate, predictable stress can actually strengthen them", explains Dr Perry. "That's what training is in sport. You're exposing the body to manageable challenges so it can adapt".In that sense, he says, sport offers something many traditional mental health interventions cannot: repeated opportunities to experience challenge, regulation and recovery within a supportive community."If a kid is part of a team", says Dr Perry, "they're going to have many more opportunities for healing experiences than if they just see a therapist once a week".Movement itself also plays a critical role. Patterned, rhythmic activities—walking, running, skating or dribbling a basketball—send signals through the nervous system that can help regulate emotional states.Brett Kirby, Nike's senior principal scientist at the Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL), was part of an early training group for the NM-Sport programme, connecting Dr Perry's concepts to the way Nike thinks about athletic training and performance environments."Rhythm supports regulation", says Kirby. "That's one of the ideas that resonates most strongly with athletes".In the first edition of the comic, The Regulation of Running, Kirby helped translate those principles, examining how cadence and repetitive movement can help athletes settle their nervous system.Running, explains Kirby, naturally creates the kind of rhythm the brain responds to."When we're training athletes physically, we think in terms of dosing—predictable, moderate exposures that allow the body to adapt", he says. "The same principle applies to stress and emotional experiences. You prepare for those moments in similar ways".The idea that sport can serve as both performance training and emotional regulation sits at the heart of YBOS.

In his work, Dr Perry has found that translating neuroscience into everyday language is notoriously difficult—one of the reasons why he is so enthusiastic about Rattray's comic series. When the former pro skater shared early sketches, the neuroscientist says he was "stunned" by how clearly the ideas came through."He translated these concepts more accurately than most people I've worked with for years", says Dr Perry. "Making complex ideas accessible is incredibly hard, and he managed to do it in a way young athletes can actually connect with".

The YBOS initiative grew out of a broader project of Rattray's called <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.nikesb.com/whysosad#" target="null">Why So Sad?</a> which uses skateboarding as a platform to raise awareness about depression and suicide prevention. The effort has included community events, storytelling and previous comic collaborations designed to open conversations about mental health within skate culture.Both Why So Sad? and YBOS have been supported by the national non-profit&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://chjs.org/" target="null">Center for Healing and Justice Through Sport&nbsp;(CHJS)</a>;&nbsp;the Calgary-based mental health organisations Push to Heal and Hull Services; and Nike Social and Community&nbsp;Impact,&nbsp;which also&nbsp;partners with CHJS to&nbsp;train non-profit partners that are powering the future of youth sport around the world.&nbsp;Limited-edition print copies of Healing Through Hoops have been distributed at fundraising events, and the digital version will soon be available online. The Regulation of Running is currently live via <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://ybos.nikesb.com/ybos-running" target="null">Nike SB</a>.&nbsp;Hause says the projects reflect what she has experienced as a broader part of Nike's approach to supporting athletes—one that encourages them to prioritise well-being and speak openly about mental health."At its core, Nike wants to take care of its athletes", she says. "It's a company that actually cares about our mental health and wants us to be healthy and happy".Participating in the comic, she says, gave her a chance to speak honestly about her own experiences, something that isn't always easy in professional sports."This project gave me an opportunity to be vulnerable", says Hause, "and maybe that'll help somebody else".

<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.crisistextline.org/" target="_blank">Crisis Text Line</a>, a Nike non-profit partner, is a free, confidential, 24/7 text-based mental health service in both English and Spanish, providing non-judgemental support to people in their moments of need. At any time, texters in the US can connect with live volunteer crisis counsellors by texting the word STRONG to 741741.

Developed with trauma experts and Nike researchers and hosted by Nike SB, "Your Brain on Sport" is a comic series that translates complex neuroscience into simple narratives that help athletes better understand stress, emotional regulation and well-being.

Making it

This Science-Backed Sports Comic Is Made to Better Your Mental Health

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.

Nike Sportswear

Alysa Liu Is Winning on Her Own Terms

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

The power of design is how it can reveal details about the wearer. That was the exact spirit behind the custom <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-therma-fit-air-milano-jacket-official-images" target="null">Air Milano jacket</a> that Nike created for Arianna Fontana, the most decorated short‑track speed skater in Olympic history.Fontana isn't just an icon in her sport. She's a force of nature. "From the start, we knew her jacket needed to honour that legacy with the same level of intention, craft and storytelling that she brings to every competition", says Danielle Kayembe, expert in apparel product innovation management. Every element of the jacket was designed specifically for Fontana, she says, from the sculptural form to sweeping baffles to bold geometry and architectural shaping. Unlike any A.I.R. piece Nike's made before, Kayembe says the jacket echoes the work of Italian Futurists: dynamic, expressive and built around movement.Most importantly, when Fontana put the jacket on, she felt exactly the way the team hoped she would: confident, bold and ready to make a statement. And that's the power of designing with and for an athlete—turning their story into something that they can wear and step into with pride, and making them feel unstoppable.Watch how the process unfolded here.

The most decorated short‑track speed skater in history deserves a custom look that stands alone.

Nike Athletes

Behind the Scenes of Creating Arianna Fontana's One-of-One Performance Jacket

When South Korean short-track speed skater Minjeong Choi was 6 years old, her family used to receive a Seoul daily newspaper every morning. One day, almost by accident, she saw a flyer in the newspaper's insert, which advertised a winter-break skating programme at the Korea University ice rink near her home. She progressed from the basics of skating to the discipline of short-track speed skating. The distances are comparable to those in athletics, all the way up to 1,500 metres. But the races are lightning-fast, and in the tight, oval confines of the rink, sound technique can mean the difference between first place and last place. (Her memorable anchor leg in the 3,000-metre relay for the 2022 World Championships saw her jump from third place to first on the final curve, winning by just 0.034 seconds ahead of Canada.) Now 27 years old, Minjeong has gone from trying out skating on a whim during her winter break to becoming a three-time Olympic champion, a four-time World Champion and the world record holder in the 1,500 metres, a record she'll defend in Milan. Below, Minjeong shares more about the unique physical challenges of short-track speed skating, the key to staying calm under pressure and why luck and resilience exist on the same continuum.&nbsp; Moving forward again and again is what truly matters in this sport. Short-track speed skating is incredibly demanding. The athletes compete in a variety of distances, both individually and in relays. The races are so dynamic that you need to be able to recover quickly to prepare yourself for the next round or race. Mental resilience is crucial. Things unfold quickly in short track, so you can't afford to dwell on a single mistake or failure.&nbsp;In winter sports, you can't overstate how important it is to be able to access the right environment. My hometown is Seoul, the capital of South Korea. I was born in the very centre of the city. Growing up near such well-established skating facilities made it natural for me to start short-track speed skating and eventually pursue it as a professional career.&nbsp;

I've fallen in love with skating over and over again in my life. I've been skating for over 20 years, and what's guided me to this day is that moment when I first stepped onto the ice at 6 years old. I still vividly remember balancing on the unstable blades, carefully moving my feet while I felt the cold wind rush past me.The pressure of an event like the Olympics reveals the mentors who mean the most to you. I was deeply influenced by our national team head coach during the 2018 season. At age 20, I was competing in my first Olympic games in my home country. I was under immense media pressure and expectation from the public. Everyone around me kept saying I had to prove myself—except my coach. He told me to simply enjoy the moment. Even if I failed, I had my whole career ahead of me. Letting go of the pressure to "succeed" in those rigid terms put me at ease and helped me to compete with a calm mindset.&nbsp;Your defining moments summon a strength you never knew you had. During that relay at the 2022 World Championships, our team was so far behind Canada and the Netherlands, we were barely shown on the screen. When it was my leg to race,&nbsp;something came over me that I couldn't explain. I closed the gap hard. As I came out of the final corner, I crossed the finishing line first. There's an image I've seen on the replay where the Canadian and Dutch skaters put their hands over their faces in disbelief. They never expected the comeback. The impossible became possible.&nbsp;

One way aging as an athlete humbles you is that it forces you to set new goals. It was in the 2024 World Tour season. Many of my European and North American competitors had significantly improved from the time I began my career and they knew my racing tendencies. I was no longer one of the youngest athletes on the tour, but I worked hard to stay competitive physically and mentally, experimenting with different race tactics to develop a style that was truly my own. I finished fourth in the world rankings that year, but I still felt like I achieved a kind of victory.Part of the emotional power of sport comes from knowing the impact we have on our communities. I had won gold in Beijing in 2022. I donated some of my winnings from that season to a relief fund that helped victims affected by the Uljin forest fire. I wanted to give back, even in a small way, to people who were going through very difficult times. I take great pride in representing South Korea. During national moments, I feel a strong responsibility to deliver great performances as an athlete in all different forms.&nbsp;Chance and luck are important, but they are just the starting point. As I started winning when I was a young athlete, I thought it was luck. Soon, competitors started treating me seriously and that pressure made me stronger, helping instill in me a belief in my own ability and preparation. Before every race, I always ask myself, "Have I prepared more than anyone else here? If so, then all I need to do is skate".

Two decades ago, the generational talent was a young girl who saw a fortuitous window to pursue the sport. She's never looked back.

Minjeong Choi Took a Chance on Short-Track Speed Skating. In Milan, She'll Go for History

Jannik Sinner wasn't supposed to be in Milan this week.&nbsp; Fresh off the Australian Open, the Italian tennis champion had planned to head back to his hometown of Sexten, Italy, nestled in the Dolomite mountains. But when Nike offered him the opportunity to partner on a one-of-one, design-focused performance look that would help kick off the brand's presence during the world's biggest winter sports event,&nbsp;Sinner rerouted to the fashion capital.Collaborating on the head-to-toe ensemble—a bespoke jacket, insulated A.I.R. gilet, tailored trousers and footwear—meant pairing one of the world's best players with Nike's top designers to create a look rooted in who Sinner is beyond the court.In his home country and with the world watching, the Nike athlete donned the customised look—sculptural&nbsp;and winter-ready with deep pleats and a boxy cocoon shape—for&nbsp;one-on-one interviews with global fashion media alongside Nike's Chief Design Officer Martin Lotti and for a special event celebrating the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-reintroduces-acg-all-conditions-gear" target="_blank">relaunch of All Conditions Gear (ACG)</a>.

On Nike's part, the crafted ensemble is a statement on the athlete-brand partnership, a glimpse into how Nike approaches serving athletes with performance and expression on the world stage. The layered system for Sinner moves beyond simply a competition kit and reflects his Alpine roots and the life he leads when he's not competing."For me, it's very important to always have a small sign of where I'm from. Take the carabiner, with the mountain detail—the small details always make a very big difference", he says. The reference is to a pure silver keychain carabiner hanging from a chain on the customised trousers; the carabiner was created in a shape inspired by an elevation map of the Alps, where Sinner spent years skiing growing up.

Made to Sinner's exact specifications, the one-of-one look was created by Nike Senior Design Director Raffaella Barbey, working alongside Lotti, and a multidisciplinary design team. Barbey oversaw fittings with Sinner in Melbourne during the Australian Open, taking his input directly into production and refining the details through multiple rounds of iteration.Early versions of the jacket featured orange piping, which designers ultimately softened after hearing his input, opting for a more muted palette aligned with his personal style. Together, the team focused on balancing Nike-only performance innovation with premium craftsmanship and elevated design.The resulting layered system centres on a customised ACG gilet featuring adaptive A.I.R. technology—the same innovation used in the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/acg-team-usa-collection-official-images" target="_blank">Therma-FIT Air Milano medal-stand jackets worn by Team USA</a>—paired with tailored outerwear and footwear built to perform in winter conditions without sacrificing style."This experience felt very different from work I've done with other brands", Sinner says. "I was more involved in the process. There were a lot of conversations about what could be better, what wasn't right, what worked well. In the end, we came out with an incredible result". For Lotti, projects like this reflect a broader approach to design, one shaped by decades of athlete partnerships, iconic products and culture-defining moments. "When you're designing something one-of-one like this, the process begins the same as it does when we're creating for competition: by listening to the voice of the athlete. What their preferences are and what their needs are, both from a performance point of view and from a visual perspective", Lotti says.&nbsp; "What's different is that we can push the limits more—on&nbsp;innovation, on methods of make and on material choices. From a design point of view, we can also include bespoke and personal design details. And we can act much faster, working on a much shorter timeline because we're only building one versus 500 or 10,000".

In Sinner's case, that meant creating something that reflects the person behind the ranking—an Italian athlete shaped by the mountains, with a clear point of view on style and a life beyond the court that has always informed how he moves through the world.

At Nike, projects like this aren't treated as one-and-done statements. They're part of a broader commitment to <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/maria-sharapova-little-black-tennis-dress-hall-of-fame" target="_blank">designing with athletes at defining points in their journey</a>, built on long-term relationships, close collaboration and a shared investment in getting it right.Lotti has a name for that approach: Nike Atelier.A platform for creating customised designs for select signature athletes at key off-field moments, Atelier applies the same athlete-driven mindset and attention to craft that define Nike innovation, extending it into moments where identity, environment and culture play an equally important role."Sinner is one of the best tennis players in the world but what many people don't know is that he was a championship skier growing up", Lotti explains. "He was one of the top ski racers in Italy and a national champion in giant slalom. He also grew up not far from here in the Dolomites".That gave Lotti and team the perfect ingredients for a Nike Atelier project: Sinner the skier, the Games in his home country, <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/the-birth-of-acg-the-summit-that-launched-a-legacy" target="_blank">the relaunch of ACG</a> in Milan and Nike introducing A.I.R. apparel innovation with the Air Milano jacket. "The result is something unexpected yet completely authentic to both Sinner and Nike", says Lotti. "Bespoke, ACG-inspired, one-of-one expression that sits at the intersection of sport and culture".

Seen on Jannik in Milan last week, the element-proof, head-turning fit shows everything about that intent. A reminder that sometimes the most compelling design stories begin by paying attention—to the athlete and everything that exists beyond the scoreboard."When a brand invests this much thought and energy into a single moment, it shows they really care about making the athlete feel special. That's one of the biggest reasons why I love being with Nike—they make you feel important", says Sinner. "You try to give positive feedback and grow together in the right direction. We've worked together for years now and feel close, like a family. That's what matters to me".

Collaborating on the head-to-toe ensemble—a bespoke jacket, insulated A.I.R. gilet, tailored trousers and footwear—meant pairing one of the world's best players with Nike's top designers.

Style Crafted to Brave the Elements: All the Details on Jannik Sinner's Customised Nike Look

At the base of K2, the world's second-highest peak, two American climbers sat among their gear, snow-streaked ridgelines rising behind them. Their faces were lean from 68 days on the mountain. Both wore yellow Nike Long Distance Vectors (LDVs)—one of the brand's top long-distance running shoes at the time—which looked as battered as the climbers themselves. A picture was needed to mark the moment; one of the men raised a thumb towards the camera. The photograph, taken by mountaineering photographer Dianne Roberts in 1978, would go on to become one of Nike's most unexpected origin stories.

An Unlikely Sponsorship

Months earlier, Nike had quietly supplied the expedition with those lightweight trainers, a last-minute gift meant for the 110-mile approach to basecamp. "A lot of it was off-trail", recalled Rick Ridgeway, one of the climbers in the photo and a leading American alpinist of the era. "You can imagine they were pretty trashed by the time we got there".In those years, most climbers relied on stiff leather boots built in Europe. The LDVs were the opposite: soft, breathable and fast. "They were just more flexible and more comfortable", Ridgeway said. "What was really cool about those LDVs is that you need to hop around on rocks. This was a rough hike so you could boulder hop. They breathed better. They were functionally superior to the more rigid traditional trekking shoe".

Internally, Nike referred to the model as the "Long Distance Vixie" because Eugene podiatrist Dennis Vixie made the last. Externally, it was known as the Long Distance Vector.At the time, Nike hadn't yet stepped into the outdoor business—the shoes had simply been a goodwill gesture for the expedition. No one could have predicted that they would plant the seed for an entirely new category.

By the time the team descended, the fabric sneakers had nearly fallen apart. Ridgeway and Roskelley held them together with tape and glue for the long walk back to the roadhead. "Being up that high for that long without oxygen, it was hard", Ridgeway remembered. "But we made it. And on the way out, we started talking about how the shoe could be modified to make it into a usable trekking shoe".When they returned home, the climbers mailed their blown-out LDVs to Nike along with a short list of suggested improvements, including a tougher sole and more rugged upper, while still keeping the shoe lightweight and flexible. Those notes would help spark Nike's first outdoor footwear line and, eventually, the category that became <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-reintroduces-acg-all-conditions-gear" target="_blank">All Conditions Gear</a> (ACG).

From Climb to Concept

Nike's design team took the climbers' feedback to heart. The field-worn LDVs had proven that lighter footwear could thrive where only heavy boots once ruled. The idea that "light is right" began to ripple through the brand's ranks.By 1981, that thinking produced three shoes that merged the best of Nike running with durability for rough terrain: the Lava Dome, the Approach and the Magma. Nike's first shoe to use a GORE-TEX lining; the design shape would later inform early thinking behind the Air Force 1. "It became very apparent that world-class athletes [were] going really lightweight", recalled product manager Monte Mayko, who helped lead the project from Nike's Exeter, New Hampshire factory. "It made total sense".

Inspired by the K2 photograph and the climbers' first-hand notes, the Nike team reimagined what a hiking shoe could be. The result was a category shift toward performance minimalism. "The whole notion of light is right and less is more and functional minimalism—climbers really get that at their core", explained Kirk Richardson, a lifelong mountaineer who would later lead ACG. "Nike intuitively got it. Bowerman and Knight were absolutely right". The new designs, built in Exeter and Saco, Maine, featured lightweight uppers, Waffle soles and durable midsoles derived directly from Nike's running heritage. For climbers and trail runners, they felt revolutionary: fast, flexible and protective enough to take the punishment of rock and scree. "Turning a training shoe into a trekking shoe. Nobody had done that", Ridgeway later said. "It was kind of revolutionary".

As those early designs hit the market, Ridgeway continued testing prototypes and corresponding with Nike designers. "They'd send me a prototype of the shoes to try out so I field tested them", he recalled. One of those early ads—the first print campaign for Nike Outdoor—used Roberts' K2 photograph of Ridgeway and Roskelley. The caption read: "Not everyone was willing to wait for our hiking boots".

The Big Ascent

By the mid-1980s, Nike's outdoor experiments had evolved from one-off projects into a legitimate design philosophy. Yet without a unifying category, they remained scattered, a mix of hiking boots, trail runners and small-batch apparel experiments without a single name or purpose.That began to change in 1987, when a small internal team was tasked with formalising Nike's outdoor efforts. According to Tom Clarke, then vice president of product marketing, Nike had been talking about being in the outdoor business for some time and had a stable of avid outdoor people around product management.

The team saw an opening in a market dominated by legacy brands in Europe still building heavy, rigid gear for mountaineering specialists. An opportunity to create athletic gear designed for movement in all conditions.Clarke, Richardson and a small team in Beaverton and Exeter began sketching out a strategy. Footwear and apparel would live under a single collection guided by four principles: high performance, durability, versatility and functional excellence. It was the beginning of a significant shift in performance outdoor footwear that would also make its way into apparel.The idea quickly gained traction. Within two years, a full outdoor business plan emerged.

The Name Takes Hold

Nike's outdoor plan was coming together, but a fitting name was still missing. Around the same time, Nike Running had begun using the phrase "All Conditions Gear" for a small line of year-round performance apparel—gear designed to handle any weather. The overlap in philosophy caught the Outdoor team's attention. When Clarke's group discovered the term, they adopted it to define the new collection, a name that embodied Nike's commitment to performance regardless of terrain or weather, echoing the same spirit that had driven Ridgeway and Roskelley's K2 ascent a decade earlier.

By 1989, it became official. Under Richardson's leadership, ACG launched as a fully integrated line of footwear and apparel designed for athletes who ran, hiked, climbed and explored outdoors.Nike made sure its debut felt authentic. The first catalogue shoot took place at Castleton Tower in Moab, Utah—a notorious rock spire revered by climbers. "We wanted to position it as a pretty real brand", said art director Ron Dumas. "We had these guys climb this tower and so we got in a helicopter. It was just about sunset and I was sitting on the rail holding onto the photographer and he's hanging out of the helicopter. The tower was beautiful and these guys are just little dots on top. It was phenomenal".

Released in 1989 as part of ACG's inaugural product launch, the Huascaran jacket featured a nylon microfibre GORE-TEX shell.

Inspired by Mount Huascarán in Peru, its design included underarm gussets, double storm flaps, cargo pockets and a zip-in liner capability, reflecting ACG's early focus on durable, all-conditions performance.

Additionally, the warm winter jacket was constructed with a Regulator-lined interior and a snap-off hood.

A decade after the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, Nike ACG marked the mountain's irreversible transformation with a before-and-after patch showing a landscape changed forever. Instead of measuring height like other ACG "landmark" pieces, the jacket captured impact, memory and permanence.

Built as an insulation layer within ACG's late-'80s systems approach, the Mount St. Helens Jacket used thick Polarfleece, ribbed cuffs and a reversible YKK zip to integrate seamlessly with outer shells. Technical and modular by design, it showed how storytelling and function came together in early ACG systems thinking.

This Kilimanjaro Anorak K2 was worn and autographed by climber John Roskelley, one of the two Americans photographed at K2 basecamp in LDVs whose trek later appeared in an early 1980s poster and in a 1989 ACG ad.

Built with two- and three-layer GORE-TEX and a nylon microfibre shell, the anorak included reinforced yokes, underarm gussets and multiple zip pockets, reflecting the technical design ethos that shaped ACG's early years.

When the first ACG collection dropped that autumn, anchored by the Air Wildwood, Lava High and a series of GORE-TEX and fleece outerwear pieces, Nike had officially staked its flag in the outdoor market.

The photograph of two climbers at the base of K2 had become something larger: the spark that ignited an entirely new dimension for Nike.

The wild moment that sparked Nike's first outdoor footwear line and, eventually, the category that became All Conditions Gear.

The Birth of ACG: The Summit that Launched a Legacy

Francesco Totti's dazzling playmaking earned him many nicknames during his two-decade-plus career. But if there's one that describes his true loyalty, "Il Gladiatore" is the most fitting, because a warrior always has a place of origin. The attacking midfielder spent an illustrious career leading A.S. Roma, his hometown club, where he earned status as a creative genius on the pitch. Loyalty to one's home is a value that can be hard to find in modern-day sports. Now 49 years old, Francesco says his connection to Rome is as important to him today as it was when he first suited up in Stadio Olimpico 33 years ago. Here, Francesco talks about his commitment to Rome, whether creativity on the pitch is innate or learned, and more. There's no part of your hometown that doesn't shape you. Rome offers many things: fun, beauty, sun, sea, mountains, basically everything. Then there's the people. Rome's passion for football is one of a kind. They are passionate, they are loving, they are willing to do anything for the team. When you are a Roma fan, you have a visceral love for the game.&nbsp;Play is the most important thing for a young footballer. Football has always been my favourite sport. I grew up with the ball at my feet. When I saw that ball spinning, I ran after it as if it were the air I breathed. In my adolescence, I grew up in my neighbourhood playing in the street with my friends. That kind of unsupervised play makes you grow up quickly.&nbsp;Give yourself the permission to separate yourself from your idols. My idol growing up was Giuseppe Giannini, the captain of Roma. "The Prince". I would have paid gold to have the same career as him. Technically speaking, we were two totally different players. But I always watched how he played, how he moved, how he positioned himself on the pitch.&nbsp;You can't train creativity. Either you have it or you don't. In football, Number 10s have this special connection to creativity in the game. When you wear that number, you have something different from everyone else. When I took to the pitch, I only thought about having fun and entertaining people. Creativity, carefreeness and a desire to have fun were all instinctual to me. And that doesn't mean creativity always works, because creativity is inherently about taking risks. Sometimes you succeed, sometimes you don't. But that's all part of the thrill.

Seeing your dreams through is all about continuity. The first time I wore the Italian national team shirt, it was a moment full of happiness. You need to hold on tightly to a dream like playing for your country. In the end, it's about showing up, over and over again, and seeing your dreams through. When you have passion and desire, it's easier to sustain the ups and downs of a long career.&nbsp;At the highest level, you're surrounded by champions as teammates, playing against opponents who are champions. The question is, who can be more closely united? Italy succeeded on that national team because we had so much talent. But we became world champions in large part because we had a great coach in Lippi, who was able to handle everyone. When you have a united group with a single goal, everything becomes easier.&nbsp;&nbsp;Boots themselves are like a part of the football community. When I see <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-football-tiempo-maestro-official-images" target="_blank">the Tiempos</a> I wore throughout my career, it moves me. I shared so many years with them, just like a real person. When you're confident in your boot, you can do things you didn't think were possible. The boots give you mental security too. For example, without the tongue of my boot positioned in the exact spot I needed it, I couldn't play the way I wanted. Not only did I like the aesthetics, in terms of how they were made, but I also had a reference point when I looked down at my feet and kicked. When the tongue was out of place, I felt like my foot was a little crooked, so I didn't feel like I could kick properly. The tongue was almost like having a scope. Those words sound strange, don't they? But mentally, my boots were essential for me.&nbsp;Staying with the same team, wearing the same jersey, has been the most beautiful and important victory in my career. Because it's not easy. It's one thing to say it, it's another to do it. But I did it because there was passion, there was love for my country. It's always been my primary goal, to start and finish with the same shirt I've always worn. <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/topics/nike-football-2026" target="_blank">See more of our universe of Nike Football.</a>

The icon spent his career pledging his loyalty to his hometown of Rome. For the attacking midfielder, his heart is forever with his city.

To Rome, With Love, From Francesco Totti

A master of contemporary pop aesthetics, LISA is the ultimate multi-hyphenate: rapper, singer, dancer, actress and style icon. At 14, LALISA MANOBAL won the YG Entertainment audition and left her home in Thailand to train as a K-pop artist. In 2025, LISA of Blackpink solidified her evolution from K-pop sensation to global superstar. She made her acting debut in HBO's The White Lotus, reunited with Blackpink for the stadium-filling Deadline World Tour and released her debut solo album Alter Ego to massive success.Now, LISA enters a new long-term partnership with Nike. First seen stepping out in <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.nike.com/w?q=Air%20MAx%2095&amp;vst=Air%20MAx%2095" target="_blank">Air Max 95s</a>, a sneaker long tied to music, subcultures and self-expression, her presence reflects a natural alignment between sport, style and global influence. We caught up with her on set in Paris while shooting a Nike campaign to talk about training, creativity and her partnership with Nike.&nbsp;

Can you share a core Nike memory, or your most memorable Nike shoe or a piece of apparel? During my trainee days before Blackpink, and even before that, I would only wear clothes that were good for dancing, like tracksuits, really big T-shirts and sneakers. I remember I saved my allowance to buy a pair of Nike Dunk Highs for training. I was so young, so that moment and those shoes will forever be one of my most vivid Nike memories. Can you tell us about what goes into your training routine today? I dance a lot! Long dance sessions are my main workout. But if I'm not performing or learning new choreography, I'm doing Pilates. I'll focus on stretching and light cardio, and overall fitness. For me it's about staying energised for everything I do. The one thing I need more of is sleep. I sleep a lot on planes.

The rapper, singer, dancer, actress and style icon talks training, creativity and why her partnership with Nike is a natural fit.