The celebrations of sports brands’ birthdays continue. After Adidas’s 75th birthday, it’s time to salute another iconic brand, born in the same year on the other side of the planet.
On Sept. 1, 1949, Kihachiro Onitsuka founded Asics in Kobe, Japan. However, the company was initially named Onitsuka Co., Ltd. It started small with just a handful of employees and initially sought to produce basketball shoes. For the first product, Onitsuka found inspiration in a dish of octopus salad. He compared the shoe’s grip to the suction power of an octopus tentacle. With this strength, the shoe allowed athletes to elevate their game and was named “Onitsuka Tiger.”
Asics has produced many iconic shoes and technical solutions. In the 1976 Olympics, Lasse Virén, a Finnish long-distance runner, wore Asics shoes to win a gold medal. He famously took off his Onitsuka Tiger shoes on his victory lap and waved them to the crowd.
One year later, the company changed its name to the one we know today. Three companies – Onitsuka Co., GTO Co. and JELENK Co. – merged to create Asics. The company name stands for “Anima Sana In Corpore Sano,” a phrase coined by ancient Roman satirist Juvenal. This saying, “a sound mind in a sound body,” is the company’s guiding philosophy.
Asics Gel technology was created in 1986 but became fashionable during the 1990s with running as a segment that went from a jogging trend to becoming one of the world´s biggest sports and hobbies. The Gel technology was a revolution that still remains today one of the go-to choices for runners around the globe.
Attitudes toward physical and mental health have changed dramatically over the last 75 years. Our founding aim was to develop young people through sports. In recent years, as more focus has been put on feeling better mentally, Asics has tried to focus on helping people of all ages move body and mind to feel better also on the inside.
