These Were the Paris 2024 Olympic Sneaker Moments That Mattered
It’s always a sobering experience when the Olympic Games come to a close, especially after weeks of cheering for your country while your heart rate is soaring. Paris 2024 was no exception and provided plenty of entertainment, memes, cultural significance and a plethora of epic sneaker moments.
Throughout Games, we had our eyes fixated on what athletes were rocking, which provided plenty of pleasure in itself. The three big brands that dominated the Games were Nike, adidas and PUMA. The latter brand definitely took the gold in terms of commanding the feet of athletes, with the brand's now-signature orange and NITRO tech seen ubiquitously throughout the games. Interestingly, Team Trefoil won the most gold medals in running, which is a big win for the German brand.
This year, skateboarding remained in the games, seeing the likes of Yuto Horigime take gold rocking his very own Nike SB Dunk Low. Breaking was a first timer on the global stage and didn’t fail to bless the world with some sneaker heat, with dancers rocking an eclectic mix from the Nike Jam to the Jae Tips x Saucony. Of course, the athletics events had countless gold-winners with epic sneaker style, including a couple of golds for Yohji Yamamoto’s adidas Y-3.
Of course Nike were going to come to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games swinging! As well as being the front-and-centre sponsor for Team USA, the Beaverton-based crew decked out their athletes in all the latest tech innovations we witnessed at ‘On Air’ in April. Their now-infamous 55-pair ‘Electric Pack’ was one of the most eye-catching parts of the past few weeks, with ‘Safari’-clad sneaks making waves across all sorts of sports.
Where Nike shine brightest is the track and field, and the jewel in their running crown, Sha’Carri Richardson came correct in a custom pair of the Maxfly 2 spikes. Richardson scored silver in her favourite 100-metre sprint and then achieved gold in the 4 x 100 metre relay. Hitting another gold was Keely Hodgkinson from Team Great Britain, who managed to finish the 800 metres in 1:56.72 while donning the bright orange Nike Zoom Victory spikes. Another top athlete in the Swoosh stable was Sifan Hassan, an Ethiopian-Dutch marathoner, who medalled in three Olympic events and won the women's marathon, completing the latter wearing the fan-favourite Alphafly 3.
Basketball is another Team Swoosh stronghold, with both Team USA’s men’s and women’s teams striking gold. A’ja Wilson and Lebron were the two heavy hitter Nike athletes in the competition, with the latter athlete teasing the Lebron 22 and rocking a crispy metallic PE. Nike also dominated the street skating portion of the games, with the top three of the men’s and one medal winner for the women’s donning SB heaters! Yuto Horigome and Rayssa Leal were of course wearing their own Nike SB Dunk Low colabs, while legendary street skater Nyjah Huston rocked his Nyjah 3 and Nyjah 2 Free signatures. Plenty of other sneaks were spotted, including the Nike SB Dunk Low ‘Oly’ and the fresh Problem Solver 8 aka PS8, which was worn by Aussie youngster Chloe Covell.
Throughout this year, PUMA have been dominating snekersphere headlines with stacks of hot drops and a plethora of collaborative co-signs. They continued their recent momentum through to Paris 2024 and kitted out a star-studded lineup, taking in medals left, right and centre. Athletics was where PUMA flexed their ferocity, with their evoSPEED TOKYO NITRO on the feet of the women's 100 metre winner. Julien Alfred was billed as the fastest women on the planet when she beat Sha’Carri Richardson, which not only marked her home country of Saint Lucia’s first-ever Olympic medal, but also set a new national record of 10.72 seconds. Also in the women’s category, PUMA athletes scored gold and silver in the high-jump while rocking the NITRO tech. Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh dominated the high jump, followed closely by Australia’s Nicola Olyslagers.
However, one of the biggest Ws for PUMA came in the form of the pole vaulting, where Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis broke his own world record, jumping a megalithic height of 6.25 metres.
PUMA’s Hoops category experienced a successful run, with Team USA’s Breanna Stewart and Jackie Young donning the Big Cat. Also entering the PUMA hall of fame was Jamaica’s Rasheed Broadbell, USA’s Jasmine Moore and the Kiwi Hamish Kerr. PUMA did an epic job on their colour combos throughout Paris 2024 and it harked back to Nike’s 2012 ‘Neon Ambush’, where bright neon colours were adorned across every sponsored athlete. For these past games, PUMA chose a gradient orange, which has been seen across all their performance categories.
adidas quietly achieved throughout the whole of the Olympic games, coming through with multiple gold medals and piping hot sneaker moments. Before any of the action even kicked off, Team Trefoil rocked the world with Pharrell. While the artist was doing a practice torch run, he had the Adizero Adios Eco Pro 1 on foot, which turns out is a collaboration dubbed ‘Earth’. Other than that high-heat colab, adidas were a heavy hitter in athletics with their star-studded cast of runners striking gold. The fastest man on Earth, Noah Lyles, won in the 100-metre sprint, with Grant Holloway winning the 110 metre hurdles. They both got their flowers while rocking the super limited Y-3 Adizero Prime SP3 Strung.
ASICS remained in the spotlight throughout the games, as the Japanese brand was a main sponsor for the Australian and Japanese Olympic teams. Liz Akama won silver in the women’s street skateboarding and was even blessed with her own custom celebratory pair. Runner Gabby Thomas secured two golds for team New Balance; however, the final big sneaker moment came in Breaking’s Olympic debut, which saw B-Girl Ayumi lace up the latest Jae Tips x Saucony Grid Shadow 2!
Read back on all of Sneaker Freaker’s Olympic coverage here.