Did you hear?…Germany's ispo show awards include running, fitness

At the ispo sporting goods show in Munich, Germany, various categories give a variety of awards. Some include training- and fitness-oriented products. Here’s a short summary of the winners. Look for more detail on some of these products in upcoming SNEWS® reports.

The Runner’s World ispo Awards, given in collaboration with Germany’s Runner’s World magazine, are chosen based a variety of criteria, including innovation, usability, potential for widespread use, good cost-value relationship, design and durability. Four categories this year were running shoes, running apparel, accessories, and walking/Nordic walking.

Winners were: Asics Gel Kinsei (shoes); Falke Ergonomic Sports System (apparel), which is knitted and seamless base layer garments by the German Falke company; and adidas-polar Project Fusion (accessories). The project is a cooperative system of adidas clothing that knits transmitter belts into shirts onto which the user snaps the transmitter, thus eliminating the need for a chest strap. The shoe has cavities in the sole under the footbed for a speed-distance device, if desired.

In the walking/Nordic walking arena, Ciclosport introduced a heart-rate monitor that incorporates a pedometer that measures steps using a magnetic sensor.

In the BrandNew area, one product of the eight winners was noteworthy: The technical Stridelite jackets have built-in lights with compartments for batteries worked into the jacket’s pockets.