When Kenyan runner Sabastian Sawe broke the sub 2 marathon record on Sunday in London, Adidas was ready to own the moment.
“Humanity just got faster. Courtesy of @sabastiansawe. Powered by Adizero. #YouGotThis,” the brand wrote on its social accounts.
For the last two years, the adidas innovation team has been working tirelessly to support the Kenyan runner with what seemed an impossible goal: to become the first human being to run a marathon in less than two hours. On Sunday, Sawe surprised the team by setting a new world record of 1:59.30 – a goal they were hoping to break at Berlin later this year. His fellow adidas athletes broke their own records – Yomif Kejelcha completed a sub 2 run at 1:59.41. Tigist Assefa did the race in 2:15.41, making her the fastest female marathon runner of all time.
“The performance that we all witnessed on Sunday goes beyond sports in general,” Marc Makowski, senior vice president of innovation at Adidas, told Brand Innovators from the APEX Lab at the brand’s global headquarters in Germany. “Sabastian ultimately showed us what is possible and believing in possibility is a big inspiration for all of us.”
From a brand perspective, there is no better way to tell the story than to show the product in action, added Adidas’ general manager of running Patrick Nava. The brand halo of these world records is already giving the brand a leg up in the performance category. The Adizero Adios Pro Evo trainers Version 3, which go on sale later this week for $500, have already sold out in preorders and are going for much higher on resale sites.
“It’s one thing to tell everyone that you are the best sports brand in the world, the other thing is proving it on the race course,” said Nava.
Nava noted that the win shows people that a barrier can be surpassed. “For somebody it is two hours, for somebody else, it is the person taking their first step. Our job is to support all athletes from the elite runners to the person who is just starting,” he said.
The message goes back to the brand’s mission, which is still based on Adi Dassler’s founding principle: “always the best for the athlete.”
“Of course what it was 80 years ago means something different in terms of times and results today, but the quest, the ethos, the mission of the company stays unchanged,” Nava said.
After completing the run, Sawe told the team he could run faster. The brand is already working on the fourth version of the shoe. “There is no finish line,” said Makowski. “There is just this belief in human potential and human performance.”
