ispo BrandNew award winners include six countries

Of eight companies selected as winners in the ispo Dupont BrandNew competition for Winter 2003, six countries are represented, with the overall winner being ZAG Multifunctional skis from France. Winners were selected from 151 applications from 18 countries — up a third over last summer’s competition (39 percent of all entries came from Germany, 22 percent from the United States, 13 percent from France, and the remaining 26 percent from other countries). Overall winner, ZAG of France is a free-ride ski. Other category winners include: SWEET Protection (Norway) for sportswear accessories for its free-ride helmets; Excess Sports (USA) for sportswear for kite-boarding clothing; NAXO (Switzerland) for winter hardware for its touring ski binding; Ocean Rodeo (Canada) for safety for a kite-boarding handlebar; Softrucks (USA) for hardware accessories, for a skateboard chassis without wheels; Cava Cava (France) for style for its streetwear apparel; and Tripendo (Germany) for summer hardware for a new tricycle bike concept. The eight winners and 32 finalists will receive free exhibit space at the Winter ispo show. To enter products in the competition, companies cannot have exhibited at ispo before or been on the market for more than four years, and must have an “innovative” concept. More information is at www.ispo-brandnew.com.