Many sports fans around the world will be tuning into the Olympics to see the best in the world showcase their skills. American fans anticipate seeing Simone Biles in gymnastics as well as swimmer Katie Ledecky, track and field athlete Noah Lyles, and LeBron James along with the rest of the superstars on the men’s basketball squad.
In total, 15,000 athletes from 120 different countries will compete for sports immortality and Olympic glory in Paris, France. As great as they all may be, none of them can say they will be a part of the Olympics as many times as Technogym has. This will be the ninth time that the global fitness brand will be providing the athletes with the fitness equipment they need over the course of two weeks. Just like the competitors they support, the Olympic Games is the brand’s shining moment, and they take great pride in being the official and exclusive fitness equipment supporter.
Technogym’s involvement may not be very significant to many of the viewers and fans, but founder Nerio Alessandri, is well aware of the importance that comes with their involvement.
“This is our shining moment,” Alessandri says.
It wasn’t Olympic athletes that garnered his attention but rather Olympia contenders and champions. His personal passion for fitness began in the 1980’s when he was reading and collecting issues of Muscle & Fitness magazine while growing up in Italy. Seeing great bodybuilding champions such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno, Robby Robinson, and Rachel McLish inspired him. He may have gotten his greatest inspiration from the legendary Steve Reeves, who portrayed Hercules in the movies of his day.
He recalled the thrill of going to Gold’s Beach Venice on is first trip to California.
“I met all the big guys back then,” he said.
Alessandri eventually saw his own way of impacting the fitness world – by creating the best equipment he could. It began with a hack squat machine but escalated well beyond that over the next couple of decades. With innovation and commitment, he founded his company and started making moves. In 1996, they created the first software for the fitness industry. By the year 2000, Technogym was in Sydney, Australia for their first Olympic Games appearance.
The growth didn’t stop there, either. They went on to premiere the first cloud-based industry platform in 2012, and their most recent advancement was the launch of Technogym Live app.
This year, Technogym is now a fitness giant. They have over 2,300 employees, many of whom are located at the Technogym village. the wellness campus in Cesena. The rest are spread across the 14 subsidiaries in Europe, the United States, Asia, the Middle East, Australia and South America. Among those people are researchers and developers—including Alessandri himself, who play a major hands-on role with the brand— updating technology for strength training, cardio, and testers for every single piece of equipment that gets shipped out of its adjacent warehouse. The brand isn’t cheap—a single treadmill lists as high as $21,670 and a kinesis machine starts out at $16,850.
Those price tags may be surprising, but the Technogym team has clearly been doing something right and making the investment worth it. Every day, 55 million people train with Technogym in 85.000 Wellness centers and 400.000 private homes in over 100 Countries. You can see why the Olympics don’t intimidate them.
Support and Research While Making a Difference
Ever the forward thinker, the entrepreneur reported that this will be more than a showcase for his brand – it will be a chance to provide 29 training centers with fitness equipment and digital technologies that will double as labs as well as a campaign called “Let’s Move for Paris.” Athletes training in the Technogym Centers in the Olympic Village and in the various competition venues will collect their Moves— the unit of measurement of movement – which will add up into a large digital counter every day.
People around the world will be able to join the initiative and help increase the number of Moves collected through the Technogym App, promoting wellness culture in their community and moving more and more often. In addition to this important cultural legacy, Technogym will leave a lasting physical legacy through the donation of a complete Technogym Outdoor solution to a park in the city of Paris that will be identified together with the city administration. Their work won’t end at the Olympics, either.
“We will also work with Paralympic athletes,” Alessandri said. “We will have special equipment for the Paralympics. The movement is really becoming big and important.”
The Paralympics follow the Games and are set for August 28th through September 8th, and Technogym’s team take that event just as seriously. The need for para-athlete equipment, which started, he says with modifications for wheelchair athletes—its ergometer and lat machine had removable seats for easier access— in the early 2000s has expanded toa thletes of all disabilities, including one his prizes, the Kinesis equipment, which he describes as a functional fitness piece that’s adaptable for everyone.
“Within the release, you’ll see we are highlighting three Paralympic athletes, Beatrice Maria ‘Bebe’ Vio (Italy), Felix Streng (Germany), and Ambra Sabatini (Italy), who serve as Technogym ambassadors.”
While they hope to get many pats on the back, they will also look for feedback that can help them make improvements and create new products that can help future fitness-minded people and athletes alike.
The Work Continues
Now besides the Olympics, his company has gone on to work with Real Madrid, Juventus, Milan, Inter, the Italian and Brazilian national teams, the Ferrari and McLaren teams in Formula 1, the French and US Tennis Federation as well as the renowned PGA Golf Tour. He’s worked with everyone from Beckham to Ronaldo, to Rafa Nadal. Clearly, Technogym has had a cultural impact on sports and fitness that may be second to none.
To think that all of it began in the ’80s when he was reading about Stallone, Lee Haney, of course Arnold. For more information on Technogym, go to www.technogym.com. You can also follow them on Instagram @technogym .