Adidas He wants to transcend as a traditional sports brand and position himself as a guarantor of accessibility. For this reason, he is working on some High performance running shoes specifically designed for the morphology of the 6 million people in the world with Down syndrome.
It is a prototype developed with the creative agency FCB Canada, which gives continuity to the “Adidas 321” campaign with which the brand sponsored in 2023 a Chris Nikic as the first athlete of his condition capable of completing an Ironman. Adidas has since shape this model to achieve a design that adapts to genetic anomalies who suffer from people with this condition on their feet.
As Nikic reveals on Instagram, the brand led him and other athletes with Down syndrome to his headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany, to present this prototype and make the necessary adjustments next to your product team. “It was very important for us to see them run with them and understand what stability they offered at the feet“, explains Marc Schmitz, designer of Adidas shoes, in the video.
The model would reach stores The next 2026.
“These shoes are the best that could happen to our children”, Says Nik Nikic, father of the athlete, at the meeting he held with the Adidas team during the trip to the headquarters in Europe.“You will turn on the spark of a youth revolution with Down Syndrome”
With this adidas project, the need that found the campaign resolved after launching “Adidas 321”. This initiative, devised by FCB Canada and awarded six Lions of Cannes in 2023, assured collaboration with the largest marathons in the world so that will reserve the dorsal “321” to a qualified neurodiver athlete. This number, in reference to the trisomy of pair 21 of people with Down syndrome.
The campaign, activated in the Boston Marathon, achieved a great social impact, and in addition to catapulting Chris Nikic’s career -who starred in the first activation of the campaign -, generated a called effect For many other runners with this disability. However, Adidas understood that the shoes were one of the main barriers for these athletes inspired by Nikic and his feat.
The prototype of the developing shoes allows the brand Solve the feet adjustment problem -And the consequent pain generated when running-, and bring your product to the real needs of consumers with Down syndrome. “There are many needs of different groups to cover in the world and that we can address, and I think this is just the beginning“Bjørn Gulden, CEO World of Adidas.
Alberto Manganelli, general manager of Running and Credibility Sports, explains for its part that the goal of the long -term brand is match the possibilities of satisfaction and growth Through sport. “We know that we have the possibility and the need to break the barriers facing this community, to give them greater access to the sport”, He points out.
Nikic, who managed to complete the world’s first Ironman as a athlete with Down syndrome in 2020, has added four other competitions in the following years, and now it will be the campaign image of this launch when he arrives at the stores, predictably in 2026.
