enviornment has introduced the signing of American Olympic hero Mark Spitz as a model ambassador, 46 years after he first collaborated with the corporate within the pioneering days of sports activities sponsorship. Spitz turned an iconic determine on the 1972 Olympics in Munich, successful 7 gold medals, all in world file time, and helped to propel the efforts of entrepreneur Horst Dassler as he launched the sector model in 1973.
In successful all his occasions in Munich – 100m & 200m freestyle, 100m & 200m butterfly, 4x100m & 4x200m freestyle relay, and 4x100m medley relay – Spitz set a file that stood for 36 years till Michael Phelps broke it with 8 gold medals on the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. He stays the second-most adorned Olympian in historical past (when it comes to gold medals: 9) behind Phelps. Again within the 70s, the picture of Spitz together with his 7 gold medals and his moustache – grown as an act of rebel in an period when different swimmers have been shaving their physique hair – transcended him from Olympic hero to cultural icon throughout the globe.
Spitz proved to be a pioneer not solely via his performances within the pool, he was additionally a trailblazer in athlete sponsorship. Not lengthy after his herculean effort in Munich, on the younger age of twenty-two Spitz retired from swimming – nonetheless an novice sport on the time – with a view to turn into enviornment’s first sponsored athlete. Subsequently he was joined within the following years by different swimming icons, together with Shane Gould, Don Shollander, Shirley Babashoff, and David Wilkie.
“There’s little question that swimming has modified since my day again within the 70s,” says Spitz. “It’s extra technical, extra skilled, and the world’s high athletes need to be much more acutely aware of their habits, since they’re anticipated to be function fashions for the youthful generations. However there are additionally some basic issues which can be nonetheless the identical – what it means to turn into a champion, what it means to be a number one model; these are parts of the DNA, and so they don’t change. That is the place I believe we will work rather well collectively, so I’m very excited by our new collaboration. For me, to this present day enviornment remains to be one of the best there may be.”
Dassler’s recruitment of Spitz and different athletes within the 70s marked the start of professionalism. Since then, sponsorship is the cornerstone for achievement in skilled swimming, from the person throughout to the world’s most profitable nationwide federation, USA Swimming, for whom enviornment is right now an official sponsor. Forty years in the past, prohibitive sponsorship tips, restricted sources, and financial realities pressured many elite swimmers to retire within the prime of their athletic capacity. In the present day, nonetheless, the function of sponsorship has allowed athletic careers to thrive, offering athletes with the suitable time and sources to dedicate to coaching and competitors.
Along with being a pioneer in sports activities advertising and marketing, enviornment’s beginnings marked it as an innovator, and since then it has developed a status for being on the vanguard of technological innovation in swimming. The corporate’s historical past consists of many years of breakthrough merchandise, together with the X-Glide within the new millennium – one in every of Time Journal’s 50 Greatest Innovations of 2009 – and most just lately the Carbon vary of racing fits, which led the sphere at FINA’s 2019 World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea.
The world of swimming has certainly modified over the previous 47 years, and each Mark Spitz and enviornment performed a fabric hand in initiating the adjustments which have in the end introduced the game into the hi-tech, skilled period that it finds itself in now. With the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo now firmly within the sights of all aspiring champions, it’s someway becoming that these two icons of the pool will as soon as once more be engaged on the identical crew.
“We’re very excited by the potential of our new collaboration with Mark,” stated enviornment North America’s Normal Supervisor, Mark Pinger. “He’s the primary super-Olympian of the post-war period, and he’s additionally a profitable businessman and an achieved TV presenter and speaker. Then there’s a barely rebellious aspect which provides a wholesome quantity of spice into the combination. We’re trying ahead to working with him, exploring concepts collectively, and leveraging his cachet to deliver enviornment to the entrance and middle of the swimming world’s minds in North America.”
Mark Spitz Bio
Born:
February 10, 1950; Modesto, California
Greatest Outcomes:
1972 Olympics, Munich
– 7 gold (100 & 200 free, 100 & 200 butterfly, 4×100 & 4×200 free relay, 4×100 medley relay)
1968 Olympics, Mexico Metropolis
– 2 gold (4×100 & 4×200 free relay)
– 1 silver (100 butterfly)
– 1 bronze (100 free)
1967 Pan American Video games, Winnipeg
– 5 gold (100 & 200 butterfly, 4×100 & 4×200 free relay, 4×100 medley relay)
Photograph credit score: Getty Pictures
