In 1949, Kihachiro Onitsuka founded the firm Onitsuka Co. Ltd., the ancestor of ASICS. The first goal was to commercialize basketball shoes for the players of the Japanese league. Not even one year later, the brand became Onitsuka Tiger. 1964 then represented a turning point with the presence of numerous athletes with a sponsorship deal with Onitsuka Tiger in the Tokyo Olympics and the beginning of the international expansion of ASICS. Performances achieved by sponsored athletes then followed, like Derek Clayton who was the first man to run a marathon in less than two hours and ten minutes.
The current name, ASICS, is an acronym for the Latin expression Anima Sana In Corpore Sano (“a healthy mind in a healthy body”) and was chosen in 1977. Since then, emphasis was placed on research with the launch of many designs for women and the creation in the 80’s of a research and development institute in the city of Kobe.
From this perspective, the ASICS Gel technology was marketed for the first time 30 years ago, in 1986. The concept? To equip the soles of the shoes with gel bubbles situated at the front as well as at the back of the product in order to absorb the vertical impacts and to spread them horizontally. ASICS can currently boast about designing some of the most innovative models such as the MetaRun or the DynaFlyte.
On the occasion of the 30 years of existence of this revolutionary technology, the Japanese brand commercialized on November 5 a “30 Years of GEL” pack that contains several models: Gel Lyte III, Gel Lyte V and GT Cool XPress. A great way to remind us that its reputation and its reference position is not inappropriate in the area of sports, but also of casual wear with the launch of several streetwear models over the last years.
