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

25 January 1964. Saturday.The Beatles registered their first number-one hit song in the United States: "I Want to Hold Your Hand".And on a cold, rainy day in Portland, Oregon, a coach and his former athlete met for lunch at the Cosmopolitan Hotel to discuss a possible business partnership.One hour later, Phil Knight and <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/bill-bowerman-nike-s-original-innovator" target="_blank">Bill Bowerman</a> stood, reached across the table and shook hands. Blue Ribbon Sports was born.To understand how two Oregonians arrived at that moment—and why it held—we have to go back a decade, to a teenager who had just been cut from baseball.

The Beginning

Phil Knight grew up in Southeast Portland and went to Cleveland High. As he tells it, he was the last cut on the sophomore-and-under baseball team—a decision that stung."I was heartbroken but my mum said, 'You are not going to mope around the house. You're either going to get a paper route or go out for track'. Well, that was easy. I went out for track".That decision set him on a course that would change his life, and, eventually, the sports world.Knight tried out for athletics and quickly found his stride. While he was physically smaller than his teammates, he was fast, competitive and willing to work.At one early meet, his father, William, a labour lawyer who would later become publisher of the Oregon Journal, introduced him to Oregon athletics coach Bill Bowerman. The two older men had attended the University of Oregon together. That day was his first introduction to the coach who would later shape his life.By then, Knight was already starting to win and place in local races, enough to earn a name in Oregon's competitive prep scene. During his junior year, he spotted a headline that stuck with him: Bill Dellinger, a runner from the University of Oregon, who had just won the mile at the national championships under Bowerman's coaching."It was startling", Knight said. "It was a huge headline in The Oregonian and that's when I became aware of Bill Bowerman and what a phenomenal programme he had".

The Hamburger of Runners

Although small and lean, Knight never let size hold him back. In 1955, he played on Cleveland's city-championship basketball team, finished second in the league 880-yard (805-metre) run and took fourth at the state meet. By autumn, he'd earned a spot on Bowerman's athletics and cross-country teams at the University of Oregon.Long before his first practice, though, his father had already turned to Bowerman for guidance—an early glimpse of the connection that would define both men's careers. Curious to get the coach's perspective on whether Phil should attend university or join the military, William Knight wrote to him that autumn.Bowerman replied with his trademark mix of bluntness and care."My first concern is for your young man's education", he wrote. "All will not be fun and frolic. It takes hard work for success in anything … it is a privilege to have your son here, also a responsibility for me, for you and for him".

Like many freshmen before him, Knight soon learned what that meant, struggling under the bombastic Bowerman. "After my freshman year, I had to sit down with myself and ask if I was going to go back to that crazy man, or not", Knight recalled. "I realised if I go back, I'm just going to have to do things his way because he's not going to change. So, I went back".That decision proved pivotal. Bowerman saw potential in Knight—not&nbsp;as a star runner but as an ideal test subject. "I wasn't one of the best runners on the team", Knight admitted. "Bowerman knew he could use me as a guinea pig without much risk".He called Knight the "hamburger" of runners—hearty stock, forgiving, determined—and began using him to test early shoe prototypes. In August 1958, Bowerman sent Knight a letter outlining his summer training plan and added a postscript, "If you have a pair you think would make good flats, send them down. They'll be ready when school starts".The pair Knight received that autumn featured an experimental white, rubber-coated fabric—"the kind you'd use for a tablecloth you could sponge off", Bowerman later said. They were crude, functional and a glimpse of what was coming. The coach was still years from finding a manufacturing partner, but his drive to build a faster, lighter shoe had already found its first willing tester.

From Athletics to Business

By the time Knight graduated from Oregon in 1959 with a degree in business, his competitive drive had shifted from athletics to the classroom. The next stop was Stanford, where he enrolled to pursue his MBA.At first, his path seemed uncertain. But during his final year, a class called "Small Business Management" caught his attention. It was a class that would quietly spark the idea of a lifetime."It was the only entrepreneurship class, so it was one of the classes that I was most interested in", Knight said.&nbsp;He developed a strong rapport with his professor, Frank Shallenberger, who assigned the students a simple but open-ended project: invent a new business, define its purpose and create a marketing plan to support it.Knight had recently overheard a conversation among photographers at the Oregon Journal, where he'd worked summers during university. They were talking about a surge of inexpensive Japanese cameras that were starting to rival the more powerful and costly German models."Electronics was a popular topic at that time and the smart kids chose to write about things like that", Knight said. "But I didn't know anything about electronics, so I wrote about something that I did know about—shoes".Drawing from his experience as one of Bill Bowerman's wear-testers, he built his hypothetical company. By 1962, German sports shoes were on the rise in the US—high quality, yes, but expensive. Knight saw an opening.He turned the idea into a paper he wrote almost literally overnight with a single bold hypothesis: Can Japanese sports shoes do to German sports shoes what Japanese cameras did to German cameras?Knight argued that Japanese-made running shoes could compete on both price and quality with the dominant German brands. Knight received an "A". When the assignment was over, he couldn't shake the idea. "I wrote a letter of enquiry to virtually every Japanese shoemaker that I could find".Only one company replied: the Kow Hoo Shoe Company of Hong Kong. The letter, written in imperfect English, was polite but discouraging."It is with regret to inform you that due to lack of [such] equipment and material, we can hardly manufacture [such] type of shoes and trust that every shoemaker in Hongkong (sic) fails in doing so. We are expert in manufacturing golf shoes, skating boots and bowling shoes, etc.".It wasn't the answer Knight had hoped for, but it didn't matter. A seed had been planted that would soon take root.Shaken but not deterred, he was about to face the opportunity of a lifetime.That story—and more—will come in future Department of Nike Archive features on The Record.

Born of need and elevated by expertise and diligence, today the Department of Nike Archives (DNA) cares for hundreds of thousands of artefacts and a limitless vault of connected stories.&nbsp;The brand archive began organically in the 1970s and officially became DNA in 2006. The department's purpose is to both preserve and accelerate the ever-evolving and interconnected story of Nike. "Knowing who you are and the fights you've come through can do huge things for morale, inspiration and creativity. That's what DNA provides". - Phil Knight

Department of Nike Archives

Go behind the scenes of the famous business deal between Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman—co-founders of Nike.

History

The Handshake That Started It All

About Nike—stories from inside NIKE, Inc.

From his first year travelling to China to his 15th, LeBron James and Nike have used basketball as a cross-cultural exchange to unite players from across the world. During his final stop on the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/lebron-james-forever-king-tour" target="_blank">Forever King Tour</a>, LeBron watched multiple teams face off in Chengdu, their squads separated by thousands of miles: the China Rise men's and women's teams, and the EYBL Cal Stars (women's) and Veritas Academy (men's) based in Los Angeles. Their love for the game might have been born across different geographic lines, but one constant in their personal stories has been <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/stories/lebron-james-china-tour-archives" target="_blank">LeBron himself</a>, who cheered on the teams as they played.

—Photo contribution from <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.instagram.com/zhengyibb/" target="_blank">ZhengYi</a>

Amateur teams from China's Rise Academy and the LA-based Cal Stars and Veritas Academy went head to head during LeBron's China tour. There in attendance to cheer them on: the King himself.

Rising together

Images: <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="/company/people/cameron-strand-contributing-photographer" target="_blank" class="ql-size-small">Cameron Strand</a> Two world records broken. Nike athlete <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/stories/faith-kipyegon-profile" target="_blank">Faith Kipyegon</a>'s 1500m WR, forecast last week during her <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/topics/breaking4" target="_blank">#Breaking4 attempt</a>, and Beatrice Chebet's 5000m WR. <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/stories/pre-classic-bowerman-mile" target="_blank">New national records set</a>. Personal bests across the board. All in front of a sold-out crowd at Eugene's Hayward Field, a venue considered sacred ground in the world of athletics. The 50th anniversary of the Pre Classic was every bit worthy of the meet's namesake, <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/stories/how-steve-prefontaine-set-the-pace-for-nike" target="_blank">legendary runner Steve Prefontaine</a>, and the images below show what fans of this sport have always known: For witnessing drama, suspense, electric energy and endless passion, there is nothing better than the athlete magic of athletics.

The drama, suspense, energy and passion—if you're not yet a fan of athletics, you're about to become one.

Incredible scenes from the 50th anniversary of the Pre Classic

Editor's Picks

Story Landing

Like training in the gym, eating your greens and unplugging to clear your mind, your style—what you wear and how you wear it—can stoke positive energy, for yourself and everyone around you. It's a daily way to <a href="https://about.nike.com/en/stories/nike-stylist-gabriella-karefa-johnson-on-self-expression" rel="noopener noreferrer">express who you are</a>. That's true whether you're a competitor, a coach or a fan. As fitness athlete Tunde Oyeneyin puts it, "How I choose to dress is how I choose to show up in the world—it can make me feel fierce, like a boss, like I command the room. When my clothes make me feel the way that I want to feel, it's like I'm pushing out the energy that I want to come back to me". Here, seven Nike athletes,&nbsp;captured in Paris ahead of Vogue World,&nbsp;share what their personal style gives them—on the court, on the track, on the pitch and in everyday life.

Feel confident in what you wear, and you bring that energy into every part of your life.

Nike exists to serve the complete athlete, and shares their winning mentality. As a champion for athletes and sport, Nike partners with athletes who share the belief that sport can break barriers, push limits, spark change and move the world forwards.

Brand of athletes

7 Nike athletes on how style fuels them

If you toe the starting line against Jakob Ingebrigtsen, he will beat you. The Norwegian middle-distance runner says it with a casual coolness, and yet his accolades reflect a talent that's dead serious. When he was 16 years old, Jakob became the youngest man in history to run a mile in less than four minutes. Now the 23-year-old is one of the world leaders in both the mile and the 5,000 metres.He attributes his supreme confidence to his insane competitive drive against his two older brothers, who pushed him to become one of running's brightest, most accomplished stars. Here, Jakob talks about competition, goals and the attitude it takes to win.Competition, not sport, was our family's first love. When it came to us finding running, none of our parents did any kind of sport. But because we're a big family, us boys are always finding ways to compete with each other and running was an immediate way to settle the score.Siblings are worthy of both your emulation and envy. When I was young, saying that I wanted to be like my brother was synonymous with saying, "I want to beat them".At the same time, when your family wins, you win. I remember when I saw Henrik crying when Filip won the World Championships in 2017. Henrik told me he had the exact same reaction when I won at the summer games. Weirdly, we feel like we're part of each other's process when we achieve some kind of success.I've brought a professional approach to running since I was 5 years old. I'd have a mental routine going before my races by the time I was in Year 2. My&nbsp; friends were wearing flip-flops. I was wearing a speed suit. The most important thing in my life was to win my races.

Even as a kid, you sense that your country has a national sport. We're not a big running nation. Growing up in Norway, running wasn't cool—I never talked about it at school. That's global football and cross-country skiing. We focused on running as we got older, but we grew up playing everything, especially snow sports. Now, we're breaking barriers for our country. We're the new running nation. &nbsp;The competitive side of running is even more important than the physical aspects. Henrik and I both learnt from our older brother being, ahem, sort of arrogant and, uh, cocky in some ways. He always went into a race thinking he could win, even when he was way slower than the rest of the field. But he inspired the two of us to build our own confidence. If he gets a bronze, I'm naturally going to get silver or gold.Running is a lonely sport, so when you have moments when you're challenging another runner to do something historic, those stick with you. My brothers and I trained with <a href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-and-eliud-kipchoge-celebrate-20-years" rel="noopener noreferrer">Eliud Kipchoge</a> for <a href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/inside-look-at-nike-breaking2-project" rel="noopener noreferrer">Breaking2</a>. Seeing the level of athletes who trained alongside him was crazy. At the end of the day, we all have the same goal: to see how fast human beings can go at different distances. We're competing for that honour, but we're also united by that competition.The most important thing that younger runners can do is to set goals for themselves. For me, it was to beat my brothers, and by doing that, I became one of the best runners in the world. &nbsp;Doing what everyone else is doing is boring. By running in Norway, I was the weird kid. Now I'm winning medals. &nbsp;

For the world-champion middle-distance runner, winning is a family business.

For the win

Jakob Ingebrigtsen on beating his brothers—and everybody else

Boxer Cindy Ngamba remembers the first time she sparred against a training partner at her home boxing club in the English town of Bolton. She was 18 years old. Her competitor, a towering male boxer, wound back and hit Cindy with a fierce backhand, sending her to the floor. She bounced back up and brought her fists to her face. "Good shot", she said through her mouth guard. The gym's coach, Dave Langone, watched from outside the ring. "This girl is crazy", he muttered to himself.&nbsp;Six years later, Cindy is already a three-time UK national champion in three different weight classes. She is also one of 33 competitors on the <a href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/championing-all-athletes-nike-teams-with-olympic-refuge-foundation" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="ql-size-small">Olympic Refugee Team</a>, a group of athletes from across the world who will compete in Paris without an official host country. Cindy was born in Cameroon, later moving to the UK at age 11 in search of a brighter future. No setback will deny Cindy her place in the ring—because the sport means so much more to her than championship titles. Here, Cindy speaks to her fierce determination, worldwide community and unwavering confidence as she prepares for Paris.I'm representing the millions of refugees in the world who are one big family. My main sense of identity is found in the refugee team. The 33 of us athletes who will compete in Paris need to go in and fight for our place, just like we've always done.&nbsp;Combat sports have very unique qualities compared with other sports. One way boxing is different is how you need to get used to moving your own body while countering the movement of the competitor in front of you. You have to get used to the momentum of your body against theirs. That's why sparring is one of the most important training tools you can use as a boxer.&nbsp;Sometimes the best coaches are the ones who can change their minds. My current coach, Dave Langone, is the same person who coached me at the beginning of my career. Originally, he didn't believe in female boxing. Now, having watched me achieve so much success in my career, he doesn't just believe in female boxing. He knows he's coaching the best female in the world.&nbsp;Momentary setbacks can be your advantage. Being the only female in my gym is something I've always been used to. When I first started boxing in Bolton, the coaches told me that all I could do was skip and shadow box off to the side of the ring; they didn't think I could handle true sparring. I did that for almost three years. Once I proved myself, I was part of the community. In fact, I felt like being around men made me stronger mentally and physically.&nbsp;Boxing is an individual sport, but it's built around community. You meet new people all around the world, international competitors from different countries, and you become family. You learn about other traditions, other cultures, other languages.

As an athlete, you need to have habits that bring you back down to reality. One of my rituals during competition is to wear two different coloured socks. People have an issue with wearing odd things. I started wearing two different socks just to annoy people, to have some fun [big laugh]. But as I kept doing it, I realised I'm the type of person who likes to wear what I wear and I don't care what other people think. Now, I consider my socks my good-luck charm.&nbsp;Winning is the result of making small adjustments. Last year at the European Games in Poland, I finished in second place. I was proud of how I competed, but not just because I medalled. I realised midway through one of my matches that I was over-thinking my technique, I wasn't letting my body flow or relax. Winning in that moment meant letting my body take over. I understood a small mentality adjustment I needed to make to succeed.Victory is the prize for all of your hard work. It's the prize after crossing many, many barriers and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.I want the next generation to know that listening is a big key to your success. Listen to your coaches when they say something, and don't act like you know it all. Even the best in the world don't know it all.&nbsp;

The three-time UK national champion and Olympic Refugee competitor is battling for a cause bigger than herself.  

Boxer Cindy Ngamba is ready to fight to the finish

Growing up in Southern Kenya, Mary Ngugi's earliest memories of her mother were of her daily trips to the local river to gather water for her Kikuyu community, located outside Nairobi. The middle-distance champion remembers how rigidly defined her mother's life was, limited primarily to domestic duties. As Ngugi grew older, she worried that her own path to adulthood would be limited to the societal roles of wife and motherhood. So at 17 years old, when her running coach asked her if she wanted to join his local team, she immediately said yes.Mary quickly became one of Kenya's most promising distance runners, winning the 5,000 metres at the African national junior championships in 2007. And yet, in the midst of her success, she witnessed the still narrow options given to female runners, a reality that stems from the male-dominated training camp and athletics club experience.&nbsp; "What looks like a good path for promising female runners can be a traumatising experience, especially for younger girls", says Mary.&nbsp;"They're manipulated into making concessions—schooling, permanent housing and motherhood, among others—&nbsp;for the sake of their athletic careers".In response, Mary was inspired to create Nala Track Club, a female-only organisation founded in 2022 and based in Nyahururu city. Mary wanted to help provide young Kenyan women an opportunity for success in semi-professional running through a supportive and safe training camp experience.

Restoring dignity

Nala Track Club aims to serve the complete person, not just the athlete, Mary says, adding that the roots of inequality among female and male athletes are viewing people as a fulfilment of skills that will benefit the party in power.&nbsp; "Athletes are not simply the sum of their performances. Our runners need to know that we care for them as human beings", Mary says. "They matter as human beings far before they join our team, far before they compete in a race. If we only serve their athletic careers, we're missing the most important parts of their dignity as individuals, which has nothing to do with their success in sport".Mary wanted to flip the script. Nala Track Club needed to offer services that unequivocally took care of the most basic human needs, like food, shelter and education. No trade-offs, no concessions. With a holistic treatment of athletes, though, comes real financial costs, many of which are easy to miss, says Ngugi. Take an athlete travelling home for Christmas—they need transportation. Who helps pay the cost? Or what about an unexpected hospital visit? These less obvious costs are joined by others that go into providing for basic human needs, such as food, shelter and education. Providing a comprehensive athlete training camp experience adds up.

Nike is committed to serving the next generation of female runners, of all abilities and backgrounds. With that aim in mind, the company is partnering with Nala Track Club, a female-only club in Kenya founded by Nike athlete Mary Ngugi.

Located in Nyahururu city and founded in 2022, the organisation seeks to create pathways for young women to succeed in running at the semi-professional level by providing a holistic, supportive and safe training camp experience.

"Female runners in Kenya don't enjoy the widespread freedoms that men have", says Ngugi. "Promising female runners often need to make incredible sacrifices if they want to run at a high level, like foregoing schooling altogether. I created Nala Track Club to fight against the inequality I see around me".

In addition to coaching development, Nike's support will also help fund new in-residence scholarship opportunities at Nala Track Club for promising Kenyan female runners.

Partnering together

Nike representatives approached Mary last year about the possibility of <a href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-nala-track-club-partnership" rel="noopener noreferrer">partnering with Nala Track Club</a> to help with some of the programme's most critical overhead costs. Other money would go towards two key goals that align with Mary's hopes for the future of Kenya's female runners: developing more qualified female coaches in Kenya, and helping fund more in-residence scholarship opportunities for runners. These areas of investment connect back to Mary's beliefs about representation. You can't be what you can't see. If more young girls see a path for becoming a coach, embodied in a figure from their real life, they're more likely to pursue the career. Witnessing these alternative paths can open up a world of options for young girls.&nbsp;Mary scrutinised other details of the modern training camp experience. She wanted girls to see themselves reflected in the many occupations that the adults in the camp held, even if those jobs weren't directly tied to athletics. Chris Cooper, a photographer from Europe and Mary's husband. He remembers a conversation he had with Mary about bringing in more female photographers to chronicle the camp experience.&nbsp;"Mary insisted on that from the early days", says Cooper. "We asked ourselves, 'What impression is this giving if the girls only see a white male from Europe taking our photos? Let's train more female photographers in-house so that these girls can picture themselves being photographers too". The same approach held true for occupations like physiotherapists, or physios. Rather than enlisting male physios to join the camp, Mary and her staff sought out female physios so young girls could see themselves in careers outside the world of pro athletes.&nbsp; Reflecting on the impact of Nike's partnership, Mary calls the relationship "life-changing". "The cost of running the camp is very demanding", says Ngugi. "I'm entrusted to feed these girls, to give them a place to live. Nike stepping in to help changed everything. We're able to absorb those costs, and we're also able to take in more girls to our camp, in addition to expanding the programme's impact by training coaches. Their help was everything we needed".

A different kind of victory

What else can female runners expect from the camp? A fully funded education, including courses on the business of sport, English lessons twice a week, on-site medical visits and more. Mary wants to give other girls the freedom to see life as more than a binary decision—go to this camp or become a mother; run professionally or receive schooling. For Nala Track Club to be successful, the measurement shouldn't be the number of runners who qualify to compete at the international level. No record broken will justify its existence.&nbsp;

"Winning is more than crossing the finishing line in first place", Mary says. "Many people have won at the top levels of their sport, and they've been forgotten. What makes people remember you is when you touch their lives. Nala Track Club will win if it changes lives. That's what we're working to do".

The decorated distance runner saw a brighter future for the country's budding female runners. Alongside Nike, she's blazing a new trail for them.

Feature

Mary Ngugi is transforming the women's running camp experience in Kenya

In April 2020, at 8pm on most weeknights, Fanny Ho sat at a desk in her guest room toggling between her laptop, her sewing machine and the prototype of the nursing sports bra she was stitching together and testing on herself. The world had plunged into an anxious paralysis, but she and her Nike teammates were charging ahead on an urgent need: <a href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-s-new-wearable-pump-compatible-sports-bra-and-easyon-shoe-give-mothers-more-support" rel="noopener noreferrer">give mothers the ultimate support system</a>. Specifically, create a sports bra that would allow them to do the movement they wanted while accommodating a wearable breast pump, all without compromising performance or comfort."When you're going through something like Covid, you pivot to what you believe will make the most impact", says Ho, Senior Manager in Design Innovation. Like so many people, Ho was getting through the pandemic by trading parenting shifts with her husband; she'd work for a couple of hours, switch into mum mode, go back to work, then hop back online after dinner and bedtime. "Dividing my day like that, I found myself asking, what project can I tackle that could help support people like me?"Ho knew from personal experience that, for active mothers who breastfed and pumped and wanted a sports bra that could accommodate both, the market had little to offer. What's more, motherhood can often force a significant drop-off in sport and pumping can create a huge challenge; mothers often have to sit still for hours a day. While the maternity space is saturated with nursing bras, Ho and the Nike team found that the few performance nursing bras out there were either too stretchy and didn't offer support or were too structured and couldn't accommodate the volume of a hands-free breast pump or the hourly fluctuations of a nursing mother's breasts. "We spoke to countless women who said they were always having to compromise between comfort and support, and nothing out there could give them both", she says.Faced with a clear gap and need, Ho did what passionate women, passionate mothers and passionate Nike employees do—move as quickly as possible towards a solution.

Innovation against the odds

Aside from the world shutting down, Ho faced another major challenge—she'd never designed a bra before."I've been a footwear designer for 17 years, and this was uncharted territory for me. I had to find my fellow Nike passion partners in the apparel space, and there was a lot of learning on the go", she says. "But that also made it exciting and invigorating. Being that consumer myself, I had intuition on what we needed to do".When Ho had her son seven years ago, she breastfed and pumped for 15 months and says she experienced first-hand that being attached to a wall "literally sucks". After she came back from maternity leave, she pivoted all of her work to focus on women's innovation, and the <a href="https://www.nike.com/t/m-swoosh-womens-nursing-and-wearable-pump-compatible-sports-bra-maternity-7437l9/FN2936-010" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Nike (M) Swoosh bra</a> was born.Ho and her project team talked to both elite athletes and everyday mums about the features they wanted in a performance nursing bra. "I think a really powerful insight was realising that both have the same needs. Elite athletes are not immune to the challenges of balancing motherhood and sport".One of those challenges: wearing a traditional nursing bra compromises a mother's ability to move, especially if she's pumping, and the force of movement and the weight of a wearable pump can be too much for a typical bra's nursing clips. "If she's doing a lunge, that little piece of plastic on the strap is going to snap", says Ho. The team knew straight away that they had to reimagine the nursing bra's hardware design, and they collaborated with Nike engineering partners to create something better.The Nike (M) Swoosh bra's patented hardware—the two pieces that attach together on the bra strap—is specifically engineered to support the weight of wearable breast pumps plus the forces of any movement. The hardware unclips for quick access to nursing, and the webbing strap on the front of the bra can be pulled to easily adjust the volume of the cups. If you want to loosen the straps, you simply lift the base of the hardware, similar to loosening the shoulder straps of a backpack. This plus the bra's adjustable back strap to accommodate an expanding ribcage ensures the piece fits throughout pregnancy and beyond.

The Nike (M) Swoosh bra's proprietary hardware helps ensure the clips stand up to lunges and burpees while pumping, along with offering easy access for nursing and adjustability for up to two full cup sizes.

How the Nike (M) Swoosh bra works

While the maternity space is saturated with sports bras, Fanny Ho, Senior Manager in Design Innovation, and the Nike team found that the few performance nursing bras out there were either too stretchy and didn't offer support or were too structured and couldn't accommodate the volume of a hands-free breast pump or the hourly fluctuations of a nursing mother's breasts. "We spoke to countless women who said they were always having to compromise between comfort and support, and nothing out there could give them both", she says.

The bra's wearable pump compatibility

"In every pitch meeting I was in, if there were women or mothers in the room, you'd see them nodding their heads", says Ho. "I have to thank so many women in the company who raised their hand and said, 'How can I help?'"

The Nike (M) Swoosh bra

A mesh back helps keep mums cool during movement, while an adjustable back strap accommodates an expanding ribcage.

This innovative, entrepreneurial spirit wasn't unique to Ho and the team. In parallel, Nike's footwear innovation team was tackling its own project to better support mums: the <a href="https://www.nike.com/t/reina-easyon-womens-shoes-sGlHgb" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Nike Reina EasyOn</a>. This first-of-its-kind pregnancy and postnatal shoe can be slipped on hands-free and has a proprietary adjustable sockliner that creates more room in the forefoot for swelling feet. Like the (M) Swoosh bra, the Nike Reina was a passion project for Nike employees."I've been a PLM for more than 10 years, and this is the most meaningful project I've ever been a part of because it's so personal", says Brenden McAleese, Expert Product Line Manager, Global Footwear. "We started it literally the day after I got back from paternity leave with my daughter. My wife wear-tested the prototypes throughout the entirety of her second pregnancy, and it was great to get that real-time feedback and recognise how impactful the shoe was to the closest person in my life—and how that could transcend to any mother on that journey". McAleese adds that now, with a 1-year-old and 2-and-a-half-year-old, his wife still wears the Nike Reina. "I got a text from her a couple of days ago saying, 'These shoes are a game changer', simply because she can slip her shoes on while carrying a kid in one arm and getting the other kid out the door".

26.2 miles of validation

To validate that the Nike (M) Swoosh bra gave mums all the benefits they needed, Ho and her team brought both elite and everyday athletes into the Nike Sport Research Lab—the epicentre of scientific research at the brand—to put the prototype through its paces. Its biggest challenge, however, was nearly 3,000 miles away on the streets of New York City.There, in the 2021 New York City Marathon, Nike seeded an everyday runner and mother with a prototype of the Nike (M) Swoosh bra, which she used to pump with during the run (three times!). "We wanted her to push the limits of our prototype and prove it was for performance, not just the ability to change a nappy and pump", says Ho. "Our mission was to support her to do the impossible and inspire other mothers to continue to chase their dreams".

Going beyond a bra

For Nike, creating products like the Nike (M) Swoosh bra, the Nike Reina EasyOn and the <a href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/the-nike-swoosh-1-is-designed-to-help-our-littlest-athletes-nurture-their-first-steps" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nike Swoosh 1</a>, the brand's most innovative early walking shoe (which Ho also helped design), is about offering a holistic system of support for parents. That support starts at home, with Nike employees.To make it easier for new mothers to return to the workforce and sport,&nbsp;the&nbsp;Nike&nbsp;innovation&nbsp;and employee&nbsp;benefits teams partnered to include more wearable pumps to choose from in the company's benefits package. And starting next month, Nike will double its parental leave benefit for all United States-based employees—offering 16 weeks of paid leave for all full- and part-time employees, from corporate to retail, to bond with their new child after birth, adoption or foster placement.

Ho wishes she'd had this kind of support when she was pregnant. And it was that feeling that drove her and an enterprise-wide group of tenacious Nike teams to bring the Nike (M) Swoosh bra to market as quickly as possible. "I have never worked harder on a project", she says. "We just knew, from all the women that we talked to—they needed this yesterday".The result is more than a next-level performance nursing bra, Ho adds. It's the feeling of empowerment."With this bra, we want to empower women to say, 'Here I am—I'm pumping, I'm moving, I'm proud to be a mum, I'm proud to be an athlete and I can be both at the same time'".

Mothers deserve apparel that works as hard as they do. Enter the Nike (M) Swoosh bra.

Explore Nike, Converse and Jordan footwear and apparel design stories featuring Nike Air Force 1, Nike Air Jordan, Nike Air Max and more.

Design

Making it

"We knew women needed this bra yesterday"

Chloe Covell knows exactly where she was when she became obsessed with skateboarding. She was six years old and watching a televised skate competition with her dad at home in New South Wales, Australia.&nbsp;On the screen flashed Nike SB team rider Nyjah Huston, who hucked himself down a set of stairs&nbsp;and stuck the landing. Instead of being terrified by the move, she was mesmerised by it. She needed to experience the adrenaline rush herself.Now, at 14, Chloe has the opportunity to medal for her home country this summer, just eight years after she picked up a board for the first time. She's also the face of the Nike SB Day One, the first Nike skate shoe made from the ground up specifically for kids. It's the kind of shoe Chloe wishes she had when she was starting out. Here, we hear from the phenom on what she'd tell her 6-year-old self and what she wants kids everywhere to know about picking up a board.Growing up around a place with good skate culture is huge.&nbsp;Tweed Heads [a coastal town in New South Wales] has a lot of local parks that are good for skaters who are just starting out. We have two skateparks around my house: Tugun and Pizzey, which is a comp-standard park. I started skating those parks all the time, and seeing people doing hard tricks made me want to get better and better. When you want to take a break, you can go skimboarding, swimming, surfing—pretty much anything outside. I've grown up doing it all.The skate community is really supportive.&nbsp;So many people have helped me become the skater I am today. My mum and dad are the most important people for me, and my sister always encourages me and congratulates me. I'm gonna throw Geoff Campbell [Nike SB Australia team manager] in there because he's helped me heaps. Other skaters in my home crew: Tommy Fynn, Eli and Beau Waterson, Yo Wuoti and Jaxon Passey. They're all ripping skaters who make me wanna skate hard. Momiji Nishiya and Rayssa Leal are my two favourite skaters, but they're also my friends. They both have really cool styles and do really good tricks. I look up to them a ton.I like having a day of the week where I don't skate.&nbsp;I skate every day except on Friday, when I'll fish. Just fishing and chilling out. It helps me relax, and this way I don't burn out or anything.Coaches don't necessarily need a ton of experience to be helpful. They just need to show up and be consistent.&nbsp;I love having my dad as a coach because he pushes me to the right level and knows what I can do. He's really helped me progress. Even though he doesn't come from skateboarding, he's aware of it and takes the time to understand the sport and culture. When we go filming, he understands my abilities, and when we're at comps, we work well together.Never stop trying to stick a new trick.&nbsp;Frontside feebles [a move that's somewhere between a 50–50 and a boardslide] took me a really long time to learn. I'd try them out, but I wouldn't lean back, so I'd just get bodied all the time. I kept practising, and I realised that I had to really lean back and push out my board. Now, it's my go-to trick.&nbsp;I like to keep the things I wear simple.&nbsp;I need a fresh T-shirt, trousers and I'm fine. Dunks always look good with the 'fit.&nbsp;Plus, I'm really liking the new Day Ones too. They're one of the comfiest shoes I've ever worn, and they look cool.I define winning a little differently than most. Whoever has made it to the comp wins because you made it that far. You put in the work to get there, so everyone's winning. Sometimes it's just luck though, right? Everyone's working hard, but sometimes you're more consistent and things come together on the day.When I prepare for a comp, I always start with the basics.&nbsp;Before I drop in, I always take a deep breath to help me focus on what I'm doing and get in the moment.﻿

Learn what winning means to the face of the Nike SB Day One, a new silhouette designed specifically for young skateboarders.

Chloe Covell's star is rising

On the second floor of the LeBron James Innovation Center in Beaverton, Oregon, Nike designers huddle around a table studying a 3D-printed shoe prototype for Victor Wembanyama's size 20 foot.

The shoe looks as mind bending as the 7'4" forward himself. Its upper is embedded with a tight, brain-like geometric pattern, inspired by the bismuth crystal Wembanyama wore around his neck on draft night last summer when he was picked No. 1 in the league. Across the lateral midfoot and down the outsole runs a fissure-shaped Nike Air unit never used before in a basketball shoe, like a crack in a comet that fell to Earth. Here, the Air unit is being used not only for cushioning underfoot, but also to forgivingly contain Wembanyama's feet for sharp movements side to side during gameplay. Much like its athlete, every feature of the prototype is subversive. Nothing quite like it has ever been made. But it still needs refining—and fast.&nbsp;Members of the team share detailed feedback with each other on the giant prototype, which is cast in a Sail colour and is punctuated by hits of quintessential Nike Total Orange for the Air unit. The designers want to accent the unit with a darker gradient to highlight the jewel-like textures inside the orange. Someone notices that the pattern's tread depth is slightly too shallow for this prototype, and the drop shadow over the texture doesn't catch the light.&nbsp;"Can we print out a new version of this Air unit?" one of the designers asks. "And can we deepen this tread?" A project manager jots down notes before rushing across the hall to the Concept Creation Center to program the changes into a large 3D printer. The chatter from 12 other shoe design review sessions hums in the giant room behind him. Surrounding the room are 13 giant mood boards, each one devoted to a different athlete's prototype, with digital renderings and sketches and material samples practically spilling over the 8-foot-tall boards.

The design studio in the LeBron James Innovation Center has been the incubator for A.I.R.—Athlete Imagined Revolution—a new co-creation process between teams of Nike designers and innovators and 13 of the brand's elite athletes, from Wembanyama to Sha'Carri Richardson to Kylian Mbappé. A.I.R. brings together some of the world's best athletes and Nike innovators and the most cutting-edge technologies, amplified by AI, to co-create the future of Air.Perhaps no project in Nike's history has united so many next-gen disciplines to create a new working process among designers, athletes and technology.&nbsp;Using Nike Air as the canvas was the perfect choice. The beauty of Air is that it will never reach its final form. It represents constant reinvention and never-ending progress. And with the advent of expanding technologies, some of Air's wildest ideas are no longer fantasy. As the world prepares for Paris, the moment was right for Nike to envision a new frontier of Air, partnering with athletes to let their imaginations run wild."For these prototypes to be successful, they must stir emotions", says John Hoke, Nike, Chief Innovation Officer. "They must evoke a sense of awe for what lies just beyond the horizon, an optimism for the future. What I really hope this project stirs up is a sense of unlimited potential. Nike Air is a nearly 50-year-young technology. We're only at the cusp of harnessing Air's potential, its full expression. And these footwear prototypes show we're nowhere near done".The A.I.R. design techniques used in this building—known as the epicentre for advanced creation at Nike's World Headquarters—stretch the furthest ends of computational power, the sharpest edges of manufacturing capabilities and the most inspired touch of human craft. The prototypes showcase the imaginative possibilities for Nike Air but are grounded in a specific reality—the world in which the athlete performs and competes.A.I.R. is writing a new definition for craftsmanship at Nike: combine the expertise of top creative talent and the most cutting-edge design tools to serve athletes at a specificity never achieved before.

Phase 1: inform and inspire

To kick off, Nike innovators organised into design teams for the 13 Nike athletes across four sports: athletics, global football, basketball and tennis. As with anything at Nike, the first move was to listen to the voice of the athlete. The teams approached their athletes with a searching list of questions&nbsp;for their ideal footwear designs. Did they want something conservative or wild? A holistic design or something defined by an individual component? Something monolithic or fractal? Other questions tapped into the athletes' backgrounds. What people, places or things inspired them? How could the shoe practically embody the athlete? Their personality, their playing style, their physical presence. Everything. Nothing was off limits in these listening sessions.That embodiment means tapping into the "athlete's truth", says Roger Chen, Nike VP, NXT, Digital Product Creation—an almost cellular understanding of the design that helps an athlete think, feel and perform at their best. Chen says the phrase served as the cornerstone for the entire design process. "When a sprinter lines up for the 100-metre and she feels a soul-deep confidence that every element, including her spikes, has prepared her to win—that's&nbsp;the athlete's truth", he says. And it's a data point that can't be quantified and requires extreme trust from both sides."Getting to an athlete's truth requires authentic relationships", says Chen. "You need to know who you're serving. At Nike, everything hinges on how well we know our athletes".Once designers compiled the athletes' answers, they entered them iteratively through detailed AI command prompts to refine their ideas. After the command prompts ran their course, the output was overwhelming: hundreds of examples of AI-created visuals for each athlete, all created in an instant, to give Nike designers plenty of inspiration points for what would become the 13 final prototypes.&nbsp;For Chen and his team, AI-generated outputs became tools to help deepen relationships with athletes in a faster, more specific way."AI exponentially increases our creative process", says Chen. "Creating these starting points used to take us months to do. Now, we can create them in seconds. We liken AI to a sharper, more intelligent pencil. The designer is still in control. It's what you do with the pencil that creates the magic. We gave these generative programs entire worlds to reflect back to us, and they did that. But that doesn't happen without the thorough listening sessions our teams conducted with our athletes".

An early concept for basketball player A'ja Wilson. The AI outputs featured above were inspired by Wilson's goals in helping ignite her team, leading to special interpretations of light, flow and rhythm.

A'ja Wilson

An early concept for Kenyan runner Faith Kipyegon. Some of the AI outputs from Kipyegon's listening sessions are featured above, inspired by her love for training in trail shoes, for traditional Kenyan artwork and especially for her young daughter.

Faith Kipyegon

An early concept for tennis player Zheng Qinwen. The placement of Air throughout the upper was inspired by the effusive joy that Qinwen brings on and off the court, while the AI outputs featured above were shaped by emotions like happiness and playfulness.

Zheng Qinwen

Phase 2: ideate and build

After taking stock of the hundreds of AI visuals, the teams put the intelligent pencil down and did what they do best: design to the exact specifications of championship athletes. The 13 teams used the forms, textures, generative figures and even the entire worlds of the AI images as inspiration to zero in on three radical shoe concepts that manifested a new expression of Air, which was easier said than done. In some cases, designers had to work against the bias of the AI algorithms to create homogenised concepts surrounding Air.&nbsp;"We noticed that a lot of the AI images interpreting Air were bound by a similar fluid aesthetic", says Chen. "The programs tend to naturally express Air as more organic, more flowy. We focused on the inspiration points that would push each concept in a specific, distinct direction".After the designers land on the three concepts, now comes the ultimate feedback—the athletes' assessments. Every detail of the concepts was discussed, including features they'd like considered for aesthetic, functional or expressive reasons.Chen recalled an early session the team had with Eliud Kipchoge as the marathoner gave his feedback on an initial concept. The shoe had a scooped, bevelled heel carved out at the end, resembling a carbon spring on a racing flat. On paper, the aerodynamic design seemed like a sure bet.&nbsp;After quietly studying the digital rendering, Kipchoge took out a sheet of notebook paper and started making his own sketches.Kipchoge drew a version of the concept himself but added a twist. He asked the team to connect the caved-out area towards the heel.&nbsp;"His reasoning was that the debris from unpaved trails would catch in the spring-like shape of the platform while he ran", says Chen. "He saw problems in how his shoe would operate in his training environment that we hadn't yet considered".&nbsp;Innovative design happens when every player—designer, athlete and AI—can challenge unintended assumptions. When Chen and the design team were listening to feedback from 100-metre champion Sha'Carri Richardson on her concepts, a descriptive word she used for her design hung in the air: graceful."When you think of Sha'Carri, you think of strength, power and determination", says Chen. But when the design team talked to Sha'Carri about her concepts, she told the designers she didn't want a spike that looked like a battle sandal. "Her dream was for her foot to have this oneness, this harmony with the plate construction of the spike, which is why we focused on the underfoot unit beautifully blending into the upper and up the leg sleeve", Chen says. "It was a great example of how our athletes embody so many traits at once. We wanted their prototypes to do the same".

As the designers received feedback from the athletes, the next step was to make it real. The teams dived into the meticulous work of creating the prototypes through their disciplinary expertise, an instinct that the team calls "an intuitive read".&nbsp;Many of the inspiration points kicked back through the AI programs are laughably wild. If they were translated into a prototype, the shoe would never hold up to the rigours of a three-hour tennis match on a sweltering Melbourne hard court or the 360-degree movements of an exhausting full-court NBA game. Does this read like a basketball shoe? The designers are tasked with asking, if not, why not? Conversely, a successful prototype, flickering with potential to become a real performance product, made the teams ask themselves, if so, how so? What insights from A.I.R. could someday help shape future products? To get the answers, the teams tapped every advanced tool at Nike's disposal to create the prototypes, like immersive 3D sketching, computational design and 3D printing and simulation, along with traditional methods like hand sketching.Take Paralympian and tennis player Diede de Groot. Diede needs her feet to be locked into her wheelchair, and her shoes can't be a distraction from her game. The team couldn't use Air as underfoot cushioning in the traditional sense, but the expression of Air still needed to be authentic to her vision. The solution: design her shoe to quickly and easily clip into her wheelchair and lock her in, similar to a cycling shoe, while using Air on the upper to provide the containment she needs. Digital methods like simulation allowed designers to test the support, containment and durability of de Groot's shoe computationally before a real prototype was even printed."A beautiful part of the project was getting such diverse minds all around the table creating together, layering different techniques and technologies over one another", says Chen. "We were constantly learning from each other. It's the Nike way of uniting different disciplines to create something new".&nbsp;Nike's manufacturing power gave the teams the ability to produce physical components quickly to evaluate design forms in person, in real time. This is when the full horsepower of Nike's facilities is on display, from rapid 3D printers in the Concept Creation Center that verify design theories to Nike's Air MI machines—&nbsp;located in a building a mile away from the World Headquarters—that can mould a never-seen-before Air unit proposed by an athlete.&nbsp;Manufacturing added another benefit to the design process: seeing subtle imperfections within the real object that can then be improved.Tennis pro Zheng Qinwen's concept was inspired by her Chinese heritage, with Nike Air appearing in the form of a coiled dragon to provide support and containment, the dragon scales acting as a durable traction design.Back in the workspace, a designer holds up Qinwen's sample, the light above the table illuminating the Total Orange of the serpentine Air unit. The indentations of the clip, an arrangement of dragon scales made to perform like traction, perfectly line up to the geometry of the Air unit beneath, a feature that's clear only when examined up close.In an earlier prototype, the textures of the clip didn't mirror the textures of the unit underneath, so Nike's computational designers made a new sample and went deep on the pattern so the scales perfectly matched the geometry of the unit. Plus, the pattern was computationally reinforced in high-wear areas, an insight that followed extensive tennis wear-testing data pulled from the NSRL.&nbsp;"Not many people will see the level of obsession that goes into these final designs", the designer says. "The important thing is that we did it".

Inspired by the excellence of high fashion, the British sprinter wanted an underfoot experience tailored for both functionality and beauty. The forefoot Air unit is computationally engineered for lightweight stability, sitting underneath a sleek, sport-mesh upper. The TPU heel clip, modelled after an elegant slingback, easily detaches once Asher-Smith hits the starting line.

Dina Asher-Smith

The hurdler's passion for cycling helped shape the design of his spike, both literally and technically. Air needed to act as a form of suspension through extreme forces, so it's concentrated in the forefoot and heel, bridged by a ribbed, hurdle-inspired midfoot plate designed with the idea to spring him forwards. On his right spike, the forefoot AIR unit is contained on the lateral side and exposed on the medial side, resembling a dual-density construction to help Benjamin bank on the turns.

Rai Benjamin

The tennis champion wields a style of play that's smooth and constantly in motion, occasionally mixed with explosive bursts of speed. She wanted Air to provide strong internal containment throughout the upper without weighing her down. Also important to de Groot was ease of entry while in her wheelchair; the heel tailgate takes inspiration from FlyEase technology, while the clipping mechanism under the outsole attaches to her wheelchair quickly and easily.

Diede de Groot

The special shape of Haaland's design represents a moment frozen in time—the curvature of the foot upon striking. The upper, with its unique Air pattern and design, evokes striking power that gives the ball a pop in response to contact.

Erling Haaland

The Aussie striker knows she gets serious bounce from Air, especially when she launches into one of her rare backflips, a playful celebration that inspired her design. The heel and forefoot feature big, bold, exposed Air units across the plate. The micro-textures across the forefoot are designed with the idea to help her control the ball, while an upside-down Swoosh runs across the collar.

Sam Kerr

The greatest marathoner in history was drawn to a design that ran the continuum from overtly technical to quietly naturalistic. Believing that "the more you squeeze, the more juice you get" from Air cushioning, Kipchoge added a visible forefoot Air unit detailed with sap-like tensile fibres. The rocker throughout the bevelled heel is inspired by his meticulous insights into helping develop the historic Alphafly line.

Eliud Kipchoge

The middle-distance champion loves the sensation of training in trail shoes, and she wanted full-length Air to provide an uncompromisingly supportive ride in her design, powering through any sudden turn in the weather. The lugged outsole design easily sheds mud when conditions are harsh. The upper features a secure, bootie-like fit, while the computationally beaded textures are inspired by a bracelet she wears in honour of her daughter, who's also symbolised through a small Swoosh on the heel.

Air is all about universal speed for Mbappé, its benefits translating across all sports. His design features full-length Air integrated through the underfoot plate for responsiveness, while the boot's profile is inspired by the function of an athletics spike and the velocity of a fighter jet. The traction underfoot is constructed for pure, linear speed.

Kylian Mbappé

In Qinwen's design, Air is both all encompassing and precisely tuned. The Air unit coils completely around the shoe's forefoot and midfoot with a serpentine construction inspired by the Chinese lunar calendar's Year of the Dragon. In areas needed for extreme lateral containment, the traction is reinforced by a pattern computationally modelled after dragon scales. The stippled texture of the collar is designed based on the bone structure of real wings.

For Richardson, Air needed to embody three key descriptions: confident, relentless and graceful. Her design's forefoot Air unit fades from Total Orange to neutral to clear towards the raised high heel, a visual cue inspired by her desire for a sense of oneness between her foot and her spike. The computationally designed upper flows beautifully into a double-helix pattern wrapping up the shin.

Sha'Carri Richardson

The Brazilian footballer is like lightning on the pitch, and his Air unit harnesses his speed through the design's sleek, responsive profile. The boot's studs slant outwards to help with quick turns and cuts when dribbling. Viewed up close, the upper features a distinct computational pattern that transforms down the forefoot, reinforcing areas where he needs elite grip for ball control.

Vinicius Jr

At home, the 7'4" forward loves to be barefoot, feeling as low to the ground as possible. He wanted Air in his design to be tuned for low-profile responsiveness, with the Air unit travelling from under the forefoot and across the shoe's lateral side for containment. The pixelated, fractal appearance of the unit is inspired by both his love for science fiction and for jewellery, like the bismuth stone he wore on his draft night. Additionally, the upper features an abstract computational print.

Victor Wembanyama

Just like her game, A'ja's design was crafted to adapt and thrive in every situation on the court. For the dynamic and versatile player, Air signifies support and a catalyst for unexpected moves with every step. The concept embodies her essence of unpredictability, echoing her unparalleled skills as a left-handed player. When she drives left, slits on the upper of the shoe gracefully widen, unveiling the Air design. The unexpected reveal serves as a visual testament to her agility and finesse, allowing her to soar while maintaining a steadfast connection to the ground.

The final athlete concepts

The unreal becomes real

The process repeats itself, with designers collecting more feedback on the samples, refining the prototype's details, printing more components and going back to the drawing board when needed. Mood boards in the workspace showing an athlete's latest samples are taken down and built back up with updated renderings and materials in just hours. At the end of an unprecedented timeline, the Nike A.I.R. prototypes are ready to be revealed in Paris. It's the textbook definition of the iterative process. And it also signals the creative process, each form a piece of stone being chipped away from all sides to reveal the art underneath.&nbsp;For Hoke, from the minute the project was briefed, it always carried a vision as lofty as its A.I.R. acronym. "Athletes are at the core of who Nike builds for", says Hoke. Imagined is the inspiration Nike gleans from AI as a partnering tool. Revolution means exactly that: a revolution for how Nike works."Our mastery of our generative tools allows us to hear athletes with a specificity that's unmatched", says Hoke. "In unskilled hands, AI can create designs that are full of generalities. But after listening to our athletes, we harness the conceptual power of AI and use it to get at the heart of what an athlete needs, creating a new working process. We can obsess over a product, and AI becomes a creative co-conspirator with us".&nbsp;

A.I.R.

In fact, Hoke says that emergent tools like AI give Nike designers the ability to go beyond listening. He calls it parametric innovation, a spin-off of parametric design. Algorithms churn out raw concepts based on inputs—and then the process stops. Here, the relationship between human and machine becomes linear and transactional, almost like a baton hand-off in a relay race. A.I.R. challenged Nike's design teams to create new, iterative relationships with their generative tools, sharpening inputs between program and person, refining a shoe's features until it channels the athlete's core being.Hoke agrees that listening with unrivalled specificity begins with relationships, which Nike has been clear on since the company began more than 50 years ago. "What is new, and at times breathtaking", he says, "is the 'velocity and the fidelity' with which Nike designers can create by combining AI and their relationships with athletes". The future of design at Nike is not its tools. It's Nike's relationship with its tools, and the bridge those tools build to deepen the relationship between athlete and designer.&nbsp;On 11 April, the 13 reality-bending prototypes were displayed on lit pedestals as a climactic reveal at the Nike On Air event. But Hoke was right. A.I.R. is just getting started."There's no going back", he says. "Form and function—meet fantasy".

What would happen if Nike were to use cutting-edge design tools and a team of its top creative talent with 13 of the world's greatest athletes? Where would their imagination take them? Enter A.I.R., Athlete Imagined Revolution.

On the track, court, pitch, street and beyond, Nike serves the world's best with unparalleled product innovation, leveraging its proprietary Nike Air, the power of new digital tools and the incomparable data collected in its Nike Sport Research Lab.

Innovating for athletes

Creating the unreal: how Nike made its wildest Air footwear yet

Athletes generate indelible moments on <a href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-air-blueprint-pack-official-images" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Nike Air</a> and these moments possess an atmosphere all of their own. Each moment is a world built on winning. On Air, records are shattered; milestones, set; championships, won. On Air, athletes change culture and capture the collective imagination.She scored how many? He ran how fast? It would seem unattainable.But on Air?On Air, it actually happened.To revisit Air's greatest moments is to understand both their impossibility and their inevitability. No record is safe. On Air, the athletes are coming.In a world without Air, we'd lose every aspect of these treasured triumphs.In a world with Air, we've already won—and we will keep on winning. Here, the 10 greatest sport moments powered by Nike Air.

Eliud Kipchoge, Breaking2 and the Nike Alphafly Prototype

Eliud Kipchoge personifies limitlessness, smashing records and redefining what's possible for an entire sport. During Nike's Breaking2 challenge in 2017 in Monza, Italy, Kipchoge bettered the standing marathon world record by nearly three minutes, a jaw-dropping feat. Two years later in Vienna, Austria, wearing a prototype of Nike's Air Zoom Alphafly Next%, Kipchoge became the first person to do the unthinkable: finish a marathon in under 2 hours. Kipchoge's time of 1:59:40 will always represent his credo: no human is limited.

Kelvin Kiptum, the marathon world record and the Nike Alphafly 3

Kelvin Kiptum raced in three marathons in his life; he won them all. In 2022, at Valencia, Kiptum set the record for fastest-ever marathon debut. In April 2023, Kiptum set a course record at the London Marathon before winning the Chicago Marathon in October. Crossing the finishing line in Chicago in the Nike Alphafly 3, Kiptum recorded the fastest-ever marathon in a record-eligible race. In February 2024, Kiptum tragically died in a car accident. He remains the marathon world record holder.

Sheryl Swoopes, WNBA dominance and the Air Tuned Swoopes V

Basketball trailblazer Sheryl Swoopes is the WNBA's cornerstone player, the first ever to sign with the league in 1996. She recorded the league's first triple double, was the league's first 3-time MVP and its first 3-time Defensive Player of the Year. In Swoopes' first 4 years in the WNBA, she helped lead her team, the Houston Comets, to the league's first 4 championships. There was never any argument about who would be the first female athlete to have a Nike signature shoe—it had to be Sheryl Swoopes.

Kobe Bryant, an 81-point game and the Nike Zoom Kobe 1

Between the years 1963 and 2006, no NBA player scored more than 70 points in a game. On 22 January 2006, Kobe Bryant—in Nike Zoom Kobe 1s—hit the court against Toronto and broke that 43-year spell. Kobe dropped 81, the second highest single-game total in NBA history. No NBA player has broken 80 since. The magnitude of 81 is staggering, eternal.

Sha'Carri Richardson, the fastest woman in the world and the Air Zoom Maxfly

In August 2023, Sha'Carri Richardson blazed her way to the title of Fastest Woman in the World upon winning the 100-metre final at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary. Wearing Nike's Air Zoom&nbsp;Maxfly, Sha'Carri set a new event record with a 10.65-second finish.<h3> </h3>

Michael Jordan, highlight-reel hang time and the Air Jordan 14

Down 1 and with seconds remaining in Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals, Michael Jordan steals the ball from the Utah Jazz and takes matters into his own hands. At the top of the key, Jordan fakes acceleration, stops in an instant, pulls up, hangs in the air with a broken defender beneath him. Of course, the shot is perfect. Jordan's Bulls win their sixth championship, completing their second three-peat. No athlete has ever carried us into the Air like Jordan. His last championship moment is among his finest.

Serena Williams, an astounding summer and the Air Max Mirabella 3

Only Serena Williams deserves to be commemorated with her own season. During 2012's Summer of Serena, Williams dazzled and dominated, winning singles and doubles championships at Wimbledon, the singles title at the US Open and her first Olympic singles tennis medal. Capturing solo gold at the London Games, Williams became the first tennis player in history to complete the Golden Slam in both singles and doubles.

Caitlin Clark, the all-time scoring record and the Nike Kobe 6 Protro

With a free throw in the final game of her senior season, Iowa guard Caitlin Clark recorded her 3,668th point, making her the NCAA all-time scoring leader. Clark captivated fans around the globe knocking off one scoring record after the next, almost entirely in retro Nike Kobe sneakers. Rising above every man and woman to ever play university basketball, Caitlin Clark now stands alone as the game's apex scorer.

Ken Griffey Jr, a Father's Day feat and the Swingman Air Griffey

No player in the history of baseball has a sweeter signature swing than Ken Griffey Jr. During a home game in Cincinnati on Father's Day, 2004, Griffey Jr strode to the plate and leveraged that swing right into the record books, becoming only the 20th player in the history of Major League Baseball to hit 500 home runs. Making matters even sweeter, Griffey Jr shared the moment with his father, former MLB teammate and Reds all-time great, Ken Griffey Sr. After rounding the bases and touching home, Griffey Jr, in swingman Air Griffey boots, spotted his dad in the crowd for a Father's Day embrace.

LeBron James, the NBA scoring crown and the Nike LeBron XX

After hitting a masterful step-back jumper from 21 feet (6 metres approx.) at the end of the 3rd quarter in a 2023 regular season home game against Oklahoma City, LeBron James jogged past midcourt, held his arms in the air and stopped time. The game paused and the whole world watched LeBron celebrate becoming the NBA's all-time leading scorer, surpassing a record held for four decades. With a regal 38,388 points now to his name, and Nike LeBron XXs on his feet, King James addressed the masses with gratitude, telling them his dreams had come true.

On Air, records are shattered; milestones, set; championships, won. On Air, athletes change culture and capture the collective imagination.

Nike is celebrating a love of sport with the world by providing fandom-fuelling stories and distinct, engaging experiences in Paris and beyond.

Powering sport

Fan hub

The 10 greatest sport moments powered by Nike Air

For more than three decades, Air Max has been an iconic Nike platform, delivering distinct innovations and styles and the sensation of walking on air. It stands the test of time and continues to inspire Nike-only creations that both serve the athlete and drive Nike forwards. But how do you renovate an icon? To disrupt the status quo and re-envision the future of Air Max, we developed a revolutionary new configuration of Air paired with a bold, sleek design: <a href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-air-max-dn-official-images" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="ql-size-small">the Nike Air Max Dn</a>. Here, Nike Product Director Reggie Hunter gives an inside look into how the shoe was born—and the work it took to pull if off.It was 2021 and I was sitting in the car park of this huge fairgrounds lot way up in Washington state. I'd just got my first Covid vaccine, and my arm was still stinging when my phone rang.It was a close Nike teammate calling to talk about an innovation for Nike Air Max with an opportunity to change the trajectory of the line. The 15 minutes I was mandated to stay in place turned into 30 minutes, then 40, with the charged momentum of our conversation.We'd suddenly received a green light from senior Nike innovation leaders for a new Air Max direction, and they had big expectations. The marching orders were basically, "We need the next big thing. We'll put the best team against it. Go figure it out and, oh yeah, you've got one year to pull it off instead of two or three, and you're going to be working from home through Covid to do it".You know what? I was energised by it. Any time you have all the leaders high up at Nike aligned and unlocking resources, it's an exciting moment. And we were ready. We'd identified lots of opportunities for Air Max. The biggest challenge that we saw was, how can we do everything that we want to do? How can we really move the needle?

Taking Max back to its roots

When you look back at where Air Max started in the late '80s, the technology was usually a smaller, visible Air-Sole, encapsulated in foam. When Nike designed a "window" to this functional component, it created a new desire for shoes.That desire felt bottomless. By the early 2000s, demand for Air Max was skyrocketing. Nike had so much innovation and newness, and it was also the first time that retros were brought back with a level of consistency and depth. People gorged on Air Max. The trend was to go bigger and bigger with the Air-Soles, which meant that by the 2020s, some people started to complain that our shoes felt bulky, heavy, not really what you would expect Air to feel like. The figurative bubble was bursting. We knew that we needed to reset in a sharp, focused way and create new innovation that we could lead a new generation forwards with.

For us, it meant going back to the roots of Air. I think what made Air Max originally so special was that it was developed for performance running, and those shoes felt responsive and were low to the ground. They looked fast, sleek, sophisticated. We wanted to revive this look and feel—and that was how the Nike Air Max Dn was born.In the Air Max Dn, you immediately notice the tubular Air language of the shoe, and that in itself is a revival; it first appeared in our Max shoes in the early 2000s, where it went below the radar at the time because people were really into the Air Max '95s and '97s. We'd seen a younger generation of versed sneakerheads who know their Nike history start to discover the old tubular styles again. And that was perfect, because we wanted to design a shoe for the new generation, give them a version of Air Max to call their own.

We started with a whole new system of Air. The Air Max Dn is our first dual-chamber, four-tubed Nike Air unit. The two chambers each have two tubes, and the back tubes are tuned to a higher pressure than the front, which helps propel you from heelstrike to toe-off. That's the "dynamic motion" in Dn—that the Air unit can interact with your foot pushing down on it and help fluidly transition you forwards. Your body is the load that forces this response out of the bag.We knew we had to be just as bold, disruptive and innovative through the rest of the shoe and make sure each component complemented and reflected the dynamic motion of the Air unit. I think that really comes through in the upper material—the haptic, textured overlay looks fast and sleek, begs to be touched. It's unexpected, and that's what we wanted to get back to. Creating a new shoe language and aesthetic that moved away from the big bubble to a form that could push the edges and create a conversation. Because I think the worst thing that can happen for a shoe is that no one's talking about it.

Recreating a feeling

I have always loved sneakers. Growing up, my parents spent a fixed amount of money on shoes, and that did not include anything that would give me street cred or shoes that I necessarily wanted. I had an older friend who got all the best shoes, and when he grew out of them, he handed them down to me.The first pair of shoes that I bought myself—&nbsp;with money from Christmas and doing errands around the house—were Nike Air Tech Challenge IVs from the Andre Agassi line. When I put them on, I thought, "These shoes are incredible and they're gonna take me to places I haven't been". I was so proud to wear them.My passion for shoes led me to work at a boutique sneaker shop in my small town in the UK from 14 until I was 23. The coolest part was discovering culture from all these older peers who were listening to new music, talking about films, and learning more about fashion and footwear from around the world. They'd take me on trips to London to go to Nike Town and see the best of the new offerings. That feeling of seeing something new, something covetable, something inspiring always stuck with me. It's part of the reason I got into this job. There's nothing like creating something that can instantly elicit an emotional and personal response.

This Max is for you

I think back to that fairgrounds lot in 2021, ending the Air Max call, shaking off the jab in my arm, and I really had no idea of the work that was ahead. The Air Max Dn team joked early on about how many emails we would share about this project. I think the shoe took five times more work than we'd ever imagined.What makes it all worthwhile to me is imagining a kid picking up an Air Max Dn. I think back to pulling on those Agassi Challenges—the attitude and confidence, the feeling of possibility those shoes gave me. I want people to wear this shoe and feel those feelings. Feel the newness and freshness. Make it their own.That's the ultimate goal, really: that I've helped create a shoe that could resonate, a shoe that could inspire someone and spark a new fascination with Nike sneakers. A shoe that will take you to places you haven't been.

Dreaming up the revolutionary Air Max Dn took creativity, spark and guts. Nike Product Director Reggie Hunter tells the whole origin story.

"We wanted to create the unexpected"

From the first built-in sports bra to football kits designed specifically for women, Nike has a powerful track record of breaking conventions and setting new standards in apparel.

1979: WINDRUNNER Nike's first apparel designer, Diane Katz, created the now iconic Windrunner during the 1970s running boom. Rejecting the norm of restrictive training gear, Nike designed a lightweight, weather-resistant single-layer nylon jacket with raglan sleeves to protect you from the elements while allowing for movement. The look was memorable too, with bold colourways for visibility and a 26-degree chevron design.

1985: NOELLE WARM-UP This year, the Noelle Warm-Up made the cover of Nike's autumn women's catalogue. The performance-ready sweatshirt responded to the growing impact of the decade's aerobics craze and featured the bright colours that typify the era.

1987: PRINT FLEECE CREW Designed by Nike veteran Angela Snow, this top was the company's first all-over print piece. It created a signature approach to the trends of the era and helped present a unique, distinctive Nike perspective for women's sports apparel.

1987: AIRBORNE The Airborne support top was the first Nike product with a built-in sports bra, and it enabled women of all shapes and sizes to feel comfortable while playing sports. The top's 1988 version carried an all-over print, extending the aesthetic pioneered by Angela Snow.

1989: SIDE 1 Nike created the Side 1 apparel division to build a distinct perspective for younger women, emphasising stylistic cues for a contemporary teen audience. While short-lived, the Side 1 line is an early example of integrating a style-first lens to performance.