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Dylan Rogers: A Comrades Convo with my Dad

Roxanne MartinColumns, NewsLeave a Comment on Dylan Rogers: A Comrades Convo with my Dad

Dylan Rogers is a sports journalist with Johannesburg radio station HOT 102.7FM and part of the Big Joburg Drive Show, which you can catch 3pm to 6pm Monday to Friday on either 102.7FM or streaming on hot1027.co.za. He’ll be running his first Comrades Marathon in August, after accepting a dare from a friend, who has pledged to donate R500 to charity for every kilometre of Comrades that Dylan is able to complete. This is a special podcast where Dylan chats to his Dad ahead of his first Comrades Marathon.

Ed Sean Gets a Cool Surprise

Roxanne MartinNews, Tried & TestedLeave a Comment on Ed Sean Gets a Cool Surprise

Ed Sean Falconer received a very cool product-drop this week from Under Armour, as we were introduced to the much anticipated Iso-Chill range. After all, it’s not every day you open a package with dry ice in it, ‘smoking’ away!

The new Iso-Chill range expels heat immediately from the body when touched, making it the perfect gear for running and training. Specially designed fibres lay flat against your skin to evenly disperse heat, so it literally feels cool to the touch. With added titanium dioxide to absorb UV Energy and quickly move that heat away from your body, the tech is proven to increase your comfort and output, even during those high-pressure runs on really hot days.

Sean will be putting the gear through its paces – indoors for now, as we wait for Cape Town to unfreeze – and reporting back in the the mag. In the meantime, if you want more info on where to get hold of this amazing product range, check out the button below, or the very cool insert we have running in our latest Modern Athlete Mag!



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UA Ambassador Tatjana Tells Us More!



“Every season you feel like you need to take it up a notch, which is a challenge considering that swimming is a very technical sport and requires a vigorous training regime,” says Under Armour ambassador and Olympic Champion Tatjana Schoenmaker.

“I wouldn’t be cool and calm if I knew I was skipping sessions or not giving 100%, because it’s the constancy of your training and constant ability to strengthen your mental muscle that helps you stay on course. Also, having the right training gear is crucial and can have a major influence on your performance. The UA Iso-Chill gear keeps me cool when training, helping me boost my training performance.”

What Do You Need in a SmartWatch?

Roxanne MartinNews, Win3 Comments on What Do You Need in a SmartWatch?

We are in research mode and want to know what you are looking for in a smart watch. To help us collect this data, we need you to answer a few questions in the form below. We know ‘time is money,’ so to provide some incentive, we have two prizes up for grabs, a HUAWEI nova 9 SE phone valued at R7999, and a HUAWEI nova Y70 Plus phone valued at R5799 up for grabs. You an put yourself in the running to win one of these prizes by putting your virtual pen to paper and completing the form below.

Under Armour ISO-CHILL is as Cold as Ice!

Roxanne MartinNewsLeave a Comment on Under Armour ISO-CHILL is as Cold as Ice!
Under Armour Iso-Chill makes you feel cooler so you can work longer. 
 
Under Armour has unveiled its Iso-Chillmicrofibre technology, this game changing technology made its debut in late 2019 as a replacement for CoolSwitch a crystal technology which sent a cooling sensation back to the body once the garment tissue was activated by sweat. The key difference between Iso-Chill and CoolSwitch is the introduction of the natural element Titanium Dioxide, which unlike its predecessor, expels heat immediately from the body when touched. 

Let’s Talk Fabric 

By flattening out the fibres within their garments and adding Titanium Dioxide*, the natural element, Under Armour has released a garment within Train and Run which quickly pulls heat away from the skin – allowing the human body to continue for an extended period, at maximum capacity. The specially designed fibres lay flat against your skin to evenly disperse heat, literally providing a cooling sensation to the touch. 

Optimum Performance

As top competitors will know, it can take a minute variant to give you a competitive edge, to create the podium finish, to define who wins and who comes in second. Under Armour added Titanium Dioxide to its ISO-CHILLCollection to absorb UV energy and quickly move heat away from the body. The exclusion of this concentrated heat allows the athlete to increase the max-out time and increase output in any hot, high pressure situation.  

Garments are available in both the run and train category in Under Armour Brand House stores nationwide as well as online at www.underarmour.co.za

Rising Sprint Star Signs for PUMA

Sean FalconerNewsLeave a Comment on Rising Sprint Star Signs for PUMA

Global sports brand PUMA has signed 22-year-old US-American track and field athlete Abby Steiner. The rising star’s victory in the women’s 200-metre final of the US Outdoor Championships in 21.77 seconds made her the second-fastest woman in the world over this distance up till that point in 2022, and this week she made it through to the 200m final at the World Athletic Championships in Eugene, going on to finish fifth with a time of 22.26 in her first appearance in a world final.

Steiner currently boasts impressive personal bests of 10.90 for 100m and that 21.77 for 200m, and she holds both the women’s indoor 200m American record with a time of 22.09, as well as the collegiate-level NCAA 200m record (outdoors) at 21.80, which she set at the NCAA Championships in June this year.

In 2018, Steiner was named her nation’s best high school female athlete, having excelled both in athletics and soccer. That year she began studying at the University of Kentucky (UK) on a dual-sport scholarship, but after tearing her knee ligaments on the soccer field, she decided to focus on the track, and Steiner cites this decision as a key to her track development: “Before, with soccer, I’d be training soccer in the fall, then I would come to track. I think really allowing myself to dive fully into the process of the periodisation of training that we do, so fall training and then going into indoor and outdoor seasons, it’s all really important in developing speed and getting to where you want to be.”

Eyes on the Prize

Since focusing solely on the track, Steiner has quickly developed into a world-class athlete. She won the 2021 NCAA Division 1 Indoor Championship 200m title with a meeting record 22.38. Then in 2022, she completed a full sweep of medals at the next installment of the NCAA Indoor Champs, taking gold in the 200m (with a meeting record 22.16), silver in the 60m (with a PB 7.10), and bronze in 4x400m relay.

Next up was the 2022 NCAA Division 1 Outdoor Champs, where she won gold in the 200m and set that 21.80 NCAA record, added a bronze medal in the 100m with her 10.90 PB, and helped her UK varsity team win the 4x400m relay (in another meeting record 3:22.55). Steiner followed that with her title-winning 200m run at the US Champs, with yet another PB.

Earlier this year, Steiner was named the National Women’s Track Athlete of the Year and the 2022 Honda Sport Award winner for Track & Field, presented annually to the most outstanding women’s college athlete in each of 12 NCAA Division 1 women’s sports. Therefore, PUMA is thrilled to announce that she has signed to run in the company’s shoes and apparel. “Abby Steiner is one of the most exciting upcoming stars in Track and Field,” said Pascal Rolling, Head of Running Sports Marketing at PUMA. “We believe that she will have a brilliant career, and we want to be by her side and support her.”

Ready to Fly Faster

Steiner graduated with a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology and exercise science in May 2022, and has been accepted to the UK’s physical therapy programme, but has decided to defer her enrolment in order to concentrate on her professional track career, and she is understandably happy to land a lucrative sponsorship deal with a sport brand so prominent and involved in track and field. “PUMA’s list of high-performance athletes is impressive and being one of them just feels amazing,” says Steiner. “I am very happy to be part of the PUMA family now, and I can’t wait to take off.”

More About PUMA

PUMA is one of the world’s leading sports brands, designing, developing, selling and marketing footwear, apparel and accessories. For more than 70 years, PUMA has relentlessly pushed sport and culture forward by creating fast products for the world’s fastest athletes. PUMA offers performance and sport-inspired lifestyle products in categories such as Football, Running and Training, Basketball, Golf, and Motorsports. It collaborates with renowned designers and brands to bring sport influences into street culture and fashion. The PUMA Group owns the brands PUMA, Cobra Golf and stichd. The company distributes its products in more than 120 countries, employs about 16,000 people worldwide, and is headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Germany.

PUMA Signs Fastest Woman Alive

Sean FalconerNewsLeave a Comment on PUMA Signs Fastest Woman Alive

Global sports brand PUMA has signed five-time Olympic Champion and fastest woman alive, Elaine Thompson-Herah. The 30-year-old Jamaican will further boost the company’s impressive roster of track and field athletes at the 2022 World Athletics Championships, currently underway in Eugene, Oregon, in the USA.

Last year Thompson-Herah became the first woman in history to win the “sprint double” at consecutive Olympics, having taken gold in both the 100-metre and 200-metre sprints at the 2016 Rio Olympics, and then doing it again at the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Apart from her historic Olympic achievements, Thompson-Herah became the fastest woman alive when she ran 10.54 seconds at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene in 2021. That is the closest any woman has yet come to beating the long-standing (but disputed) World Record 10.49 Set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988.

“We are thrilled that Elaine has chosen to join the PUMA family,” says PUMA CEO Bjørn Gulden. “With her speed, she embodies everything we stand for as a brand. Elaine ran the second-fastest time in women’s history last year and is only 0.05 seconds off a World Record. She is really targeting that World Record, and we want to help her achieve that goal with our most innovative performance products.”

PUMA has a long and rich history in track & field, and has sponsored the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association since 2002. Thompson-Herah now joins her Jamaican compatriot, sprint superhero, World Record-holder and multiple Olympic gold medallist Usain Bolt as part of the PUMA family. “PUMA just felt like the right fit, a company that has been working with the World’s Fastest Man for decades,” says Thompson-Herah. “I’m excited to be part of such an elite group, and I really want to break the 100-metre World Record. The current one has been undefeated for 34 years. Now is the time. I think there’s still a lot I can unleash.”

Ed’s Note: At the time of writing, Elaine Thompson-Herah had finished third in the women’s 100m final at the 2022 World Champs, the third-placed Jamaican in another cleansweep of the sprint podium by her country on the world stage. She had also cruised through the first round of qualifying heats in the women’s 200m event, with the semi-final round scheduled during the evening session on Tuesday 19 July and the final on the evening of Thursday 21 July.

More About PUMA

PUMA is one of the world’s leading sports brands, designing, developing, selling and marketing footwear, apparel and accessories. For more than 70 years, PUMA has relentlessly pushed sport and culture forward by creating fast products for the world’s fastest athletes. PUMA offers performance and sport-inspired lifestyle products in categories such as Football, Running and Training, Basketball, Golf, and Motorsports. It collaborates with renowned designers and brands to bring sport influences into street culture and fashion. The PUMA Group owns the brands PUMA, Cobra Golf and stichd. The company distributes its products in more than 120 countries, employs about 16,000 people worldwide, and is headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Germany.

PUMA takes Forever Faster Spirit to World Champs

Sean FalconerNewsLeave a Comment on PUMA takes Forever Faster Spirit to World Champs

Global sports company PUMA has taken its ‘Forever Faster’ Spirit to the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon in the USA by outfitting 12 national federations, including South Africa, and several leading medal contenders, and providing them with its latest Nitro technology, so they can perform at their best.

Ever since its foundation in 1948, it has been PUMA’s philosophy to provide the fastest athletes with the fastest products, an attitude summarised in the brand’s motto “Forever Faster.”

 

 

In Eugene, individual PUMA-sponsored athletes, performing in PUMA’s footwear technology, include men’s 400m hurdles World Record-holder Karsten Warholm of Norway, Swiss men’s pole vault World Record-holder Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis, triple Olympic sprint medallist Andre De Grasse of Canada, Ukrainian women’s indoor high jump World Champion Yaroslava Mahuchikh, Italy’s men’s high jump Olympic Champion Gianmarco Tamberi, triple jumpers Patricia Marmona of Portugal (Olympic silver medallist in Tokyo) and Will Claye of the USA (former World Indoor Champion), women’s pole vault double Indoor Champion Sandi Morris of the USA, and many more.

The athletics federations of Australia, the Bahamas, Barbados, Brazil, the British Virgin Islands, Cuba, Jamaica, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Switzerland and Trinidad and Tobago will all perform in PUMA apparel.

“Track and field is sports and athleticism in its purest form, and is embedded in the very core of PUMA,” says PUMA CEO Bjørn Gulden. “We are proud that many World Records were set in our shoes, and we are looking to our athletes writing the next chapter in sports history in Eugene.”

Current World Records in PUMA shoes are men’s triple jump (Jonathan Edwards, 1995), men’s 1000m (Noah Ngeny, 1999), men’s 3000m Steeplechase (Saif Saaeed Shaheen, 2004), men’s 100m and 200m (Usain Bolt, 2009), men’s 400m hurdles (Karsten Warholm, 2021), and men’s pole vault (Mondo Duplantis, 2022).

Even Better Spikes

PUMA has sent its athletes to Eugene with improved versions of its successful evoSPEED NITRO spikes, making them even lighter and more competitive. Furthermore, specially for Norwegian hurdler and World Record-holder Karsten Warholm, PUMA has created the ultimate hurdles shoe, the evoSPEED Naio NITRO.

There are also improved versions of the gold medal-winning PUMA evoSPEED Nitro Elite, and several new products for the long-distance runners. The evoSPEED Distance Nitro Elite+ 2 spike uses PUMA’s proprietary NITRO foam and a PWRPLATE for exceptional energy return, and is aimed at events ranging from 800m to 10,000m.

PUMA’s road racing athletes can choose from the DEVIATE NITRO ELITE 2, which is even lighter than its predecessors and also features a new last, or the futuristic and aggressively designed FAST-R NITRO Elite, which uses NITRO Elite technology and a PWRPLATE to support an efficient run.

The new racing shoes were unveiled at a special press conference at PUMA House in Eugene two days before the World Champs began, with a number of PUMA’s world class athletes in attendance. You can watch a recording of the press conference below

More About PUMA

PUMA is one of the world’s leading sports brands, designing, developing, selling and marketing footwear, apparel and accessories. For more than 70 years, PUMA has relentlessly pushed sport and culture forward by creating fast products for the world’s fastest athletes. PUMA offers performance and sport-inspired lifestyle products in categories such as Football, Running and Training, Basketball, Golf, and Motorsports. It collaborates with renowned designers and brands to bring sport influences into street culture and fashion. The PUMA Group owns the brands PUMA, Cobra Golf and stichd. The company distributes its products in more than 120 countries, employs about 16,000 people worldwide, and is headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Germany.