Run to Win

Last month, Arien O’Connell ran the fastest time but didn’t win in the Nike Women’s Marathon due to Nike unnecessarily starting a non-elite group of “elite” women 20 minutes early in the race. After a firestorm by runners throughout the country, Nike awarded her an equal prize as “a” winner. In my opinion, this is fair as it recognized her accomplishments while not taking anything away from the actual winner of the race.

Yesterday morning, however, O’Connell was in for a surprise. Reebok, one of Nike’s chief rivals in the shoe and apparel industry, surprised O’Connell at the elementary school she teaches at with an award ceremony to recognize her accomplishments.

Reebok awarded her a free pair of shoes every month for the next year, a $2500 donation to her school along with a t-shirt for all of the kids in her class, and a trophy inscribed “Winner and Heroine of Non-Elite Runners Everywhere.”

This is a great move by Reebok, and amuses me to no end. It is prolonging Nike’s embarrassment at poorly executed race management, and fosters a lot of good will amongst the running population. And I have to imagine that O’Connell is pretty happy at having won over $1000 worth of running shoes.

(Hat Tip: Shéamus – More Info: San Francisco Chronicle – Photo Credit: Reebok)

This week last year dealt mostly about steroids and baseball’s poster child, Barry Bonds.

• Rafael Palmeiro tested positive last year, proving Jose Conseco right. The Italian police busted up a steroid ring that was supplying steroids to US soldiers in Iraq.
• Barry Bonds had some fun with the media. First, he said that he was out for the year, and then his doctor said Bond’s injuries were minor.
• An attempt was made at the stair climbing world record.
• Adidas bought Reebok.
• At the Beach to Beacon, Gilbert Okari won for the 3^rd time in a row and I ran a repeat of the previous year with a time that was within ¹/₁₀^th of a second from my previous year’s time.

There was also some minor football news last year, and in the article about my Beach to Beacon 10k repeat I described the heat stroke suffered from one of my teammates. Coincidentally, the same woman that will be officiating at my wedding in a week. This year’s Beach to Beacon will begin at eight o’clock this morning.

Adidas has struck an agreement to purchase Reebok.

Adidas boss Herbert Hainer said that the deal “represents a major strategic milestone for our group”. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to combine two of the most respected and well-known companies in the worldwide sporting goods industry”, said Mr Hainer.

Nike is now going to have a serious rival. Because of the global nature of the business, and the fact that even combined they are still smaller than Nike is, there should not be much of an anti-trust issue.

I do not have a problem with Adidas buying Reebok (except that I don’t own any shares, of course…), and see nothing wrong with giving Nike a challenge. Normally, I like seeing the little guy prosper, and none of them are little guys. I don’t use any of their shoe products from any of the companies, but I hope that it results in cheaper products being available all around. Shoes cost too much money.