国际英语新闻：Nike hopes for strong Olympic performance

BEIJING, April 16 -- Nike Inc's chief executive officer Mark Parker knows how demanding Olympic athletes can be.

    If his company could provide equipment that takes a single gram of weight off their feet or injects a tiny bit of extra power into their bodies, he believed it would win athletes' hearts - and then, the market.

    "We grew up with the Olympics, and it's our challenge to work with the athletes, elevating the levels of their performances and helping them realize their potential. That is the core of what Nike is all about," Parker said on the sidelines of the Innovation Summit for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games last week in its headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon.

The Beijing Olympics wouldn't be any exception, although the challenge would be greater than before because of the company's longstanding relationship with the host country and commitment to Chinese sports, Parker said.

    He recalled how his firm helped equip China's high jump star Zhu Jianhua on the journey to setting new world records and winning an Olympic bronze medal in the early 1980s. The endorsement proved to be a marketing success for Nike in China.

    Clad in Nike shoes, Zhu broke the men's high jump world record three times from 1983-84 and then claimed a bronze medal at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

    Zhu's heroic achievement cinched Nike's brand appeal among Chinese.

    "That was a big moment for Nike and for China," Parker said. "We actually intensified our commitment to China sports and Chinese consumers in all the years since then."

    Nike achieved even greater success in China 20 years later, when it endorsed athlete Liu Xiang, who won the men's 110m hurdles and set an Olympic record in Athens.

    At the recommendation of Li Tong, a former men's 110m Asian record holder and the first Chinese athlete Nike endorsed, the then 19-year-old runner signed with Nike in 2002. Since then, the company developed specialized equipment for the hurdler and dispatched a special team to follow the globe-trotting Liu.

    It paid off when Liu became the first Asian to win the Olympic 110m event. Within hours of his victory, China was bombarded with Nike ads featuring Liu.

    Today, Nike is the sports apparel market leader in China, its second-largest market after the United States. Parker said last week annual sales in China had exceeded $1 billion, a few months sooner than expected.

    "Athletes like Liu Xiang really inspire us to innovate at really high levels," Parker said. "They are demanding, and their demands make us even better." Parker added Liu was "one of the most competitive and driven athletes ever seen".

    Today, fans hope the 25-year-old Shanghai native would defend his Olympic title this August on his home soil.

    Parker said he believed a Nike-equipped Liu could create the defining moment of the Beijing Games. It could be as Michael Johnson did in a pair of Nike shoes when he won both the 200m and 400m with world record times at the 1996 Atlanta Games or as Cathy Freeman did in a green-and-white, one-piece Nike dress when she won the 400m at the Sydney Games.

    "We hope Liu Xiang will perform at his highest level. We will do our best to help him," Parker said. "It's highly motivating and inspiring for us to see athletes like Liu Xiang do well and to think we are actually helping him win the gold and perhaps set a world record."

    In addition to Liu, Nike signed agreements with more than 100 Chinese athletes and 22 federations of 28 of the sports featured in the Games.

    "(Chinese sports federations) have high expectations to create the best products to allow their athletes in each sport to perform and compete for the medals," Parker said. "They challenged us to create the best, and that allows us to really rise to our full potential at the same time."

    In Athens, many of Nike's newly endorsed athletes emerged as surprising winners, including Xing Huina (women's 10,000m) and two history-making pairs - Meng Guangliang and Yang Wenjun (canoeing C2 500m winners), and Li Ting and Sun Tiantian (women's tennis doubles winners).

    "The Olympics is our opportunity to showcase our products, innovation and brand all at the same time on the world's best athletes, while everybody is watching the world's greatest sporting event. We are very passionate about it," Parker said.

    "We are already focusing on the next Olympics as well, and looking at what we can in advance."