Sports company PUMA has celebrated incredible moments of its sponsored athletes, many of them writing sports history at the Olympic Games in Tokyo this summer. “These Olympic Games in Tokyo have been an amazing sports event that created many heroes and heroines, both nationally and globally, who delivered world-class performances on the track and pitches,” Bjørn Gulden, CEO of PUMA. “Given all the uncertainty before the Games, I feel the organizers did a terrific job in making these Games happen. We are incredibly proud of our PUMA sponsored medalists, as well as the rest of our athletes, who worked hard and gave everything to perform at their very best.”
Outstanding world-class performances were delivered by PUMA athlete when he clocked in 45.94s over 400m hurdles, breaking his own world record of 46.70s. In a much acclaimed race – labelled the ‘Best Race in Track&Field History – the 25-year-old Norwegian was said to have not broken his own world-record, but destroyed it. Between Edwin Moses’ world record of 47.45s in 1977 and Karsten’s world record of 46.70s from July 2021, the 400m hurdles record had progressed by 75 hundredths of a second. Then, in just one race in Tokyo, Warholm improved the world record by 76 hundredths – a performance unseen in 44 years. In addition, the sacrosanct 47 second mark in the 400m hurdles had only been broken six times before the Tokyo Olympic final. In this one race, three hurdlers ran under 47 seconds, with the silver medalist Rai Benjamin breaking Karsten’s old world record, running 46.17s. At the Rio Olympics in 2016, gold medalist Kerron Clement ran 47.73s and in the 2019 Doha World Championships, Karsten won in 47.42s. With these times, a hurdler would only have taken the sixth place in the final.
26-year-old Canadian sprinter André de Grasse raced to Gold over 200m in 19.62s and claimed Bronze in the 100m race in 9.89 seconds. With a track record of having participated in the 100m and 4x100m in the 2015 World Championships, in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m at the 2016 Olympics, in the 100m and 200m at the 2019 World Championships and in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m at the Tokyo Olympics, André is the World’s most consistent male sprinter. 27-year-old American Molly Seidel became the third American woman to ever win a medal in a marathon at the Olympic Games, when she finished in a time of 2:27:46, having had only run two marathons before competing at the Tokyo Olympics.
For what was the first time in athletics in the last 113 years, PUMA athlete Gianmarco Tamberi and Mutaz Essa Barshim decided to share the gold medal in the men's high jump, a true symbol of sportsmanship.
Pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis claimed his first Olympic title when he cleared 6.02m to win gold, but also attempted 6.19m, one centimetre higher than his previous best of 6.18m, the current world-record.
Jamaica’s Hansle Parchment surprised the world in an incredibly tight 110m hurdles final when he beat the undisputed favourite Grant Holloway, who had not lost a hurdles race since August last year. At the U.S. Olympic trials, Holloway only missed the 110mh world record by one-hundredth of a second, but in Tokyo, Hansle raced past him to win gold in 13.04s – labelled “one of the shocks of the Games”.
With a jump of 17.98m, Portuguese PUMA athlete and Olympic debutant Pedro Pichardo won gold in the triple jump, setting a new national record for Portugal, and winning the first gold medal for his country of any kind since 2008, and only the fifth ever.
The female 100m sprinters of the PUMA-sponsored Jamaica Olympic Association claimed Gold (Elaine Thompson-Herah), Silver (Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce) and Bronze (Shericka Jackson), having occupied 10 of the 12 places on the podiums since the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
The above are just a selection of historical performances of PUMA-sponsored athletes, who gathered a total of 22 Gold, 24 Silver, and 20 Bronze medals in Tokyo this summer. PUMA-sponsored Federations scored eleven Gold, 8 Silver and 7 Bronze medals.
For more than 70 years, PUMA has partnered with the most famous and successful athletes. Within PUMA’s brand mission to become the fastest sports brand in the world, the company has continued to focus on creating brand heat and developing product ranges that are right for its athletes and consumers.
We have continued on our mission to design “stuff that works” and have significantly improved our product offering in our sports performance categories. In order to create PUMA’s fastest, lightest and most propulsive Track & Field spike, we have teamed up with Formula 1 brand Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 to apply engineering insights from Formula 1 and automotive world to create the EVOSPEED TOKYO FUTURE FASTER+ and the EVOSPEED TOKYO FUTURE NITRO FASTER+ for PUMA athletes, including Gold medalists Karsten Warholm and André De Grasse, Canadian 200m sprinter.
“This collaboration was very unique and it has given us the perfect product for us to work on the track - a spike that is really aggressive, with a really good forward propulsion, and it gives me all the tools I need to be the best version of myself,” said Karsten Warholm.
For our Olympic kits – worn by the athletes of 12 Athletic Federations, such as Jamaica, Norway and Sweden – PUMA improved the aerodynamics by optimizing air turbulences behind the sprinters to minimize the air drag that occurs while running at such speed. What usually slows sprinters down are air turbulences behind them caused by the air that is pushed by the athletes’ bodies and flows around them towards their backs. These turbulences will cause an air drag back. By strategically placing little brush knobs at the side of the kits’ sleeves and legs that change the turbulence patterns, PUMA minimized the air drag back.
“It is all about the athletes, their physical and mental training and their ability at the key moment to give their best,” added Bjørn Gulden. “At PUMA, we are motivated to help them perform at their very best.”
“Greatness is doing things that no one has ever done before”
The world record holder and retired Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt speaks about his motivation to become the greatest sprinter of all time in a video interview with sports company PUMA.
While many titles, world records and medals followed, Bolt says that “dominating throughout the years is very important to the legacy that I built for myself. Anybody can win one Olympics, but to actually win three back-to-back Olympics over the span of eight to ten years is very difficult. For me, that’s how I kept myself motivated and focused because I didn’t skip a year, I didn’t focus on four years to come, I focused on every year throughout, because those years were also important to dominate and to keep training and work at a high level. He admits that he missed being at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo last year: “When I watched the Olympics, I really missed it. Especially watching the Mens’ 100m and not seeing a Jamaican in the finals really made me miss it and really wanted to be there. For me, the girls did extremely well for Jamaica. They really showed up. Again.” Bolt says he fully embraces the vision of “Only See Great”. “Greatness is just being yourself and dominating at a high level over years and doing things that no one has ever done before”, added the World’s fastest man.
The idea for PUMA’s “Only See Great” campaign was inspired by cultural icon, entrepreneur and philanthropist Shawn “JAY-Z” Carter who first said: “I only see great. I don’t see good. I don’t see compromise. We should always strive to make something great, something that will last.”
Shah will also be featured in PUMA’s women’s platform “She Moves Us”, which celebrates women who continue to move sports forward. With the goal of inspiring young women and girls globally, PUMA has invited their female ambassadors to speak about what inspires them, the challenges they have faced in their respective industries and what they have learned along the way. Through her partnership with PUMA, Shah will share her experiences as a South Asian female in the fitness and wellness industry. To learn more about “She Moves Us”, click here.
“We are very proud to partner up with the Brazilian Confederation of Athletics, which is the first time ever that PUMA sponsors a Brazilian national sports team, so it will be a landmark.” said Fabio Kadow, Marketing Director PUMA Brazil. “Their successful track record in world class athletics, with 19 Olympic medals, makes this partnership a perfect fit for PUMA.”
"Partnering with PUMA is a huge responsibility for us and a source of great pride”, said Wlamir Motta Campos, CBAt´s president. “I'm sure the athletics community will embrace PUMA, because we're talking about a product of excellence, a fantastic technology that will help the performance of our athletes."
PUMA has a long and rich history in Track & Field, having sponsored the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association since 2002. The brand also kits out several national federations including Cuba, Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Dominican Republic, Norway, Switzerland, Portugal and South Africa. Individual PUMA sponsored athletes include World Champion 400m hurdler Karsten Warholm, pole vault star Armand "Mondo" Duplantis, triple Olympic medalist Andre De Grasse, long distance runner and Olympic medalist Molly Seidel, and triple jumpers Patricia Marmona and Will Claye.
Global sports brand PUMA has signed 22-year-old US-American track and field athlete Abby Steiner. Her victory in the 200-meter final of the US Outdoor Championships in 21.77 seconds makes her the second fastest woman in the world over this distance this year. She will compete at this summer’s World Athletic Championships in Eugene, Oregon, USA.
Abby holds both the women's indoor 200 meters American record as well as the NCAA record (outdoors) and was named nations best high school female athlete in 2018. She holds personal best of 10.90 seconds over 100 meters and 21.77 seconds over 200 meters. Earlier this year, she was named the National Women’s Track Athlete of the Year and the 2022 Honda Sport Award winner for Track & Field.
Just after setting a collegiate record at the NCAA championships in June this year, Abby Steiner won her first national title in the women’s 200 meters in Eugene, Oregon, with a time of 21.77 seconds.
“Abby Steiner is one of the most exciting upcoming stars in Track and Field,” said Pascal Rolling, Head of Running Sports Marketing at PUMA. “We believe that she will have a brilliant career and we want to be by her side and support her.”
“PUMA’s list of high-performance athletes is impressive and being one of them just feels amazing,” said Abby Steiner. “I am very happy to be part of the PUMA family now and I cant wait to take off.”
Global sports brand PUMA has signed five-time Olympic champion and fastest woman alive Elaine Thompson-Herah. The 30-year-old Jamaican will further boost the company’s impressive roster of track and field athletes ahead of the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, USA.
PUMA has a long and rich history in Track & Field and has sponsored the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association since 2002. Elaine Thompson-Herah now joins her Jamaican compatriot, sprint superhero, world record holder and Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt.
“PUMA just felt like the right fit, a company that has been working with the World’s Fastest Man for decades,” said Elaine Thompson-Herah. “I’m excited to be part of such an elite group and can’t wait to get started. I really want to break the 100-meter world record. The current one has been undefeated for 34 years. Now is the time. I think there's still a lot I can unleash."
At 26 years old, Woo Sanghyeok already has several medals to his name such as gold at the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade and silver at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene. In 2022, he set a personal best and the Korean Record of 2.36 meters at the indoor event in Hustopeče, Czech Republic.
“We are very excited to welcome Sanghyeok to the PUMA family,” said Pascal Rolling, Head of Sports Marketing at PUMA. “We believe he will be among the best high jumpers in the world in the next years.”
At PUMA, Woo Sanghyeok will join a roster of world-class athletes such as 400m hurdles World Record Holder Karsten Warholm, pole vault World Record Holder Armand “Mondo” Duplantis and Jamaican sprinters Shericka Jackson and Elaine Thompson-Herah.
Sports company PUMA has signed a partnership agreement with German long-distance runner Konstanze Klosterhalfen, who will wear the company’s performance running products starting at the first Diamond League event in Doha on May 5.
At only 26 years old, “KoKo”, as she is known in the track and field community, can already look back on an impressive career. She is the reigning European Champion in the 5,000 meters and has medaled at the World Championships and the European Indoor Championships. She has set several German records ranging from 1,500 meters to 10,000 meters.
Apart from her success on the track, Klosterhalfen has also shown that she can be a serious contender in road races. She won her debut half-marathon race in Valencia last year, setting the third-fastest time ever run by a European woman.
“KoKo is an incredible talent who has proven her speed time and time again,” said Pascal Rolling, Head of Sports Marketing Running. “We are very excited that she has chosen PUMA to partner with, both on the track and on the road.”
Following the introduction of a new line of running products that uses PUMA’s NITRO technology, the company built a strong team of middle and long-distance runners, including Olympic medalist Molly Seidel, World and Olympic Champion Emmanuel Korir and Jenny Simpson, one of the most successful runners in US-history.
On the track, Klosterhalfen will compete in PUMA’s new evoSPEED Distance NITRO Elite+ 2 spike, an ultra premium race day shoe which incorporates PUMA’s latest NITRO ELITE midsole for responsive cushioning and a full-length internal carbon plate for exceptional energy return.
For road races, she can choose from PUMA’s latest road running shoes such as the Deviate NITRO Elite 2, which is made with a carbon fiber PWRPLATE that ensures stability and maximum running efficiency combined with the supreme cushioning of PUMA’s NITRO ELITE foam.
PUMA is releasing its newest update to its running lineup, the Deviate NITRO ELITE 2.
Elite runners require high-performance products that don’t just keep up but excel. When it’s about beating your PR every time, you need propulsion, next-level cushioning, and stabilization. That’s why PUMA reworked Deviate NITRO Elite 2 to incorporate the latest and most innovative engineering.
The Deviate NITRO ELITE 2 will be available on February 1 on PUMA.com and in store at PUMA Flagship stores and select retailers globally.
Inspired by PUMA running technology, the new ForeverRun NITRO comes from the world of sports but is here to take over the streets.
Notes to Editors
PUMA welcomes the PUMA ForeverRun NITRO, a close relative of the PUMA FASTROID NITRO and PUMA Fast-R NITRO Futrograde.
PUMA NITRO™ cushioning is a specialized, nitrogen-infused foam that maximizes response and bounce while remaining super-lightweight. Nitrogen infusion amplifies the inherent properties of foam, making it highly springy and soft.
