adidas athletes Haile Gebrselassie, Tyson Gay, Allyson Felix, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Jeremy Wariner and Jana Rawlinson today visited Beijing Sport University, as part of a trip to the host Olympic city, to share their success secrets with aspiring Chinese athletes.
With 24 Olympic and World Championship gold medals between them, all six know what it takes to be the best and acted as mentors, coaches and friends to a group of 40 young athletes from the Beijing area.
The adidas athletes are on a pre-Olympic visit to Beijing where they also took time to visit the Bird’s Nest, the stage of possible Olympic success for all six in August and The Great Wall of China, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Bringing these elite athletes together with aspiring student talent is a perfect embodiment of what adidas and Impossible is Nothing are all about in 2008; helping people reach their own individual goals, in this case, through personal insights from, and side by side interaction with elite Olympic athletes.
The students aged between 11 and 18 got a once in a lifetime opportunity to question the 100m and 200m World Champion Tyson Gay about his starting block technique and picked up endurance tips from the Marathon World Record holder Haile Gebrselassie. Double World Champion in the 400m hurdles Jana Rawlinson, meanwhile encouraged future stars over the obstacles with both students and athletes revelling in the relaxed nature of the class.
Veteran sprinter and double Olympic gold medalist Maurice Greene was also on hand to inspire and enable future Beijing athletes to get the most out of their training and set them on the right track in their athletic careers.
In seven months time the six will return to Beijing to continue their Impossible is Nothing quest at the XXIX Olympic Games where adidas, the Official Sportswear Partner of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, will be present to support and enable their talent, creating footwear and apparel for 27 out of the 28 Olympic sports.
Today’s event gave the adidas stars a chance to get an excellent feel for Beijing and its people and truly sense the Olympic spirit that has been embraced by the Chinese capital and has made the athletes even more hungry to fulfill their Olympic dreams this August.
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