Recently in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) Category
Imagine winning an Olympic gold medal all because of a little help from Nike. Now you can sink those three point shots all because of a 369g Hyperdunk basketball shoe... or even get that chance to be the first to cross the finish line while saving the environment! Nike's new Swift Suit has been engineered by performance-enhancing technologies to include an aerographics mesh system made from 100% recycled polyester yarns. Go fast, and go green!
As the Bejing Olympics grow closer, companies such as Nike have been continuously working on lighter, faster, and stronger products for competing athletes.
"In designing the uniforms and footwear for the Beijing Olympics, Nike worked closely with the China Olympic Committee, the China Federations and the athletes themselves. In Beijing alone, hundreds of feet were scanned to determine the specific morphology of Chinese feet.
The Nike Sports Research Lab collaborated with research institutions in Beijing and Shanghai to look into the most common injuries in sports. Nike also interviewed the athletes about their likes and dislikes in terms of equipment. Performance-enhancing technologies such as Aerographics, Flywire and Lunarlite foam were integral to the creation of the apparel and footwear for Beijing 2008.
Throughout the four years of development, 22 federations and 54 designers were involved, and a total of 22 uniforms and 32 pairs of footwear were created."
In a time when Mixed Martial Arts is gaining mainstream media attention and boxing is losing a lot of its luster, can Saturday September 29th Middleweight Championship upset help revive boxing? By itself, probably not, but boxing has a full plate of marquee matchups remaining for the rest of 2007, and this fight was the perfect opener. Kelly Pavlik, a 25 year old 31-0 knockout puncher from Youngstown, Ohio, beat Jermaine Taylor, who was the undisputed Middleweight champion and also undefeated with a draw against Ronald "Winkey" Wright on his resume, by KO in round 7. Boxing analysts for HBO billed it one of the best Middleweight title fights ever. Though that may be debatable, what isn't, is that boxing fans in Atlantic City, and many watching at home enjoyed the action packed fight. What remains to be seen is if boxing can build off of this matchup with the long list of other premiere matchups involving fighters at the top of their respective weight classes. Tim Sturby, writer for ESPN.com writes and excellent article about the exciting fights coming up this fall which can be found at the link below.
http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=3042994
