All Obituary articles – Page 2
-
News briefsDecathlon’s communication director has passed away
We deeply regret the death on Sept. 5 of Xavier Rivoire, who has been in charge of international communication for Decathlon in the past few years as Decathlon United Media Leader. He was 53 years old. The cause of his death has been described as having been “brutal.” Rivoire joined ...
-
News briefs
Running legend Ron Hill has passed away
Ron Hill, the legendary British runner who founded the Ronhill brand of performance sports clothing and one of the greatest marathon runners of all time, died in his hometown of Hyde, Cheshire, England, on May 23. He was 82 years old. In May 2018, he had announced that he had ...
-
News briefs
Influential German retail manager passes away
Hugo Laumann, a German manager dedicated to the promotion of traditional small and medium-sized independent sporting goods retailers, passed away on April 30 at the age of 92. As its general manager, he helped build up the German sporting goods retailers’ association, VDS, into an organization whose strong voice was ...
-
News briefs
Vans co-founder passes away
Paul Van Doren, a co-founder of Vans, has passed away on May 6 at the age of 90, shortly after the publication of his biography, titled “Authentic.” He started as a service boy at a rubber factory at the age of 16. He acquired his independence in 1966 when he ...
-
News briefs
Horst Widmann of Puma and FESI has died
Horst Widmann, a former top executive of Adidas and Puma and a former president of the Federation of the European Sporting goods Industry (FESI), has passed away. He was 80 years old. The highly diplomatic and kind-hearted executive was elected to lead FESI in 2004 and served multiple terms adding ...
-
News briefsWaltraud Lenhart passes away after short severe illness
Source: Leki Waltraud Lenhart After the tragic plane accident in 2012,in which Klaus Lenhart lost his life, the German family-owned pole specialist Leki has now been hit by another tragedy. After a short and serious illness, Waltraud Lenhart, managing partner of Leki, has died unexpectedly at the ...
-
News briefs
Pierangelo Zanetta, former Shimano executive and EFFTA president, has passed away
Pierangelo Zanetta, the former managing director of Shimano Europe Fishing Holdings, has died after a long illness. Zanetta was an important figure in the global fishing tackle industry. In 2007, while working at Shimano, he joined the board of the European Fishing Tackle Trade Association (EFTTA). He was elected president ...
-
News briefs
Ernst Aichinger has passed away
Ernst Aichinger, a former vice president of the European sporting goods retailers’ federation (FEDAS) who contributed to the launch of the annual European Week of Sport, passed away on Jan. 14 at the age of 73. The Austrian business graduate was a retail member of Sport 2000 Austria and a ...
-
News briefs
Obituary: Pat Doran
Patricia Doran, a well-known and respected American fashion designer and fashion journalist, has passed away. John Horan, former editor of Sportstyle and current editor of the American edition of Sporting Goods Intelligence, calls her “the first lady of sports fashion.” She began her career in fashion journalism at Ski Magazine ...
-
News briefsFormer Zappos head Tony Hsieh dies
Tony Hsieh, who co-founded Zappos.com, the pioneering American footwear and clothing online retailer, and ran it for about two decades, died at the age of 46 due to complications from injuries sustained in a house fire in New London, Connecticut. Known for his kindness, generosity and a relentless focus on ...
-
News briefs
Roger Pirot, Salomon’s commercial director for 15 years, has died
Roger Pirot, who served as commercial director at Salomon from 1965 to 1980, has passed away. He was 93 years old. Pirot, who joined Salomon at the age of 38, directly participated in the establishment of Salomon’s subsidiaries in Japan, Switzerland and the U.S. During his tenure, the staff of ...
-
ArticleBob Gore, inventor of Gore-Tex, has died
Robert W. “Bob” Gore, chairman emeritus of the board of directors of W. L. Gore & Associates, died on Sept. 17 at the age of 83. Gore sat on the board of his family’s materials science company for 57 years, 30 of them as chairman, and served as president from ...
-
ArticleJosef “Pepi” Fischer is dead
Josef Fischer, the son of the company founder and owner of Fischer Sports GmbH, died on Aug. 26 at the age of 90.After the passing of his father, Josef Fischer took over the management of the company together with his sister in 1959, when he was not even 30 years ...
-
News briefs
A Foot Locker pioneer, Harold Sells, passed away
Harold Sells, a U.S. executive closely connected with the history of Foot Locker, has died at the age of 92. His career started in 1954 when he opened the first store of Kinney Shoes, a American shoe retail chain that was then bought by Woolworth Corporation, where he helped found ...
-
News briefs
Shimano’s chairman emeritus has died
Yoshizo Shimano, chairman emeritus and former president of his family’s eponymous company, died of chronic heart failure on July 2. He was 85. He was the third son of Shimano’s founder, Shozaburo Shimano, and joined what was then called Shimano Industrial in 1958. Yoshizo Shimano will doubtless be remembered for ...
-
ArticleFrank Dassler has passed away
Frank A. Dassler, a member of the family that founded Puma and Adidas in 1948 and 1949, died of a long and severe illness in Hamburg on June 20, six days after his 64th birthday. His passing closes an important chapter in the history of the sporting goods industry, in ...
-
ArticleRossignol’s spiritual father has passed away
Laurent Boix-Vives, a great gentleman, a visionary and a relentless entrepreneur who made a major contribution to the development of the snow sports sector, passed away on June 18 at the age of 93. He ran the Rossignol Group for nearly 50 years, building it into the world’s biggest ski ...
-
News briefs
Manuel "Manolo" Freixas is dead
Manuel Freixas, an influential publisher in the Spanish sporting goods sector, passed away on May 30, following a long illness. He was 68 years old. Back in 1982, after working for a magazine called Turisport, Freixas co-founded Diffusion Sport, which remained for many years the only major Spanish B2B publication ...
-
News briefs
Pascal Aymar has passed away
Pascal Aymar, a well-known and influential figure in the sports and outdoor sector, passed away on May 6 due to a heart attack. Based in the region of Annecy, the 63-year-old Frenchman was active lately as a consultant, as a vice president of the Outdoor Sports Valley (OSV), the French ...
-
News briefs
Wolfgang Schnellbügel, 61, passed away on Jan. 1 after four...
Wolfgang Schnellbügel, 61, passed away on Jan. 1 after four years of fighting against the Lou Gehrig's disease, which is a form of lateral sclerosis. The well-known German executive was the managing director of Sport 2000 International from 2006 to 2015, developing its operations all over Europe and the buying ...
