Luo Haili gave the money in a cool and wealthy manner, and more than half an hour later, Gu Kun stepped onto the starting platform of the swimming pool again wearing the Adidas high-elastic and high-strength close-fitting swimsuit that he was accustomed to wearing.
It's almost noon on September 18th, and the proportion of spectators in the venue has also changed from "mostly local Australians" at the beginning to an increasing number of spectators from all over the world.
Tickets for the Olympic swimming pool are sold by time periods, so this morning there are a lot of unimportant preliminaries and semi-finals, and some finals are scheduled starting before noon.
Time is precious, and the number of foreign tourists who only watch expensive but important games is gradually increasing.
The audience does not know what is happening behind the scenes, so foreign tourists are generally looking forward to Gu Kun's shocking performance.
The small number of Australian tourists who had been watching the whole day were looking forward to "It would be nice if Gu Kun was a little injured when his clothes exploded. If his condition continues to be sluggish, maybe Thorpe will have a chance."
Unfortunately, their lust is destined to fail.
"Eh? Gu Kun seems to have changed his clothes. It's too obvious. The color is completely different from what he wore in the morning."
"No, my clothes are worn out in the morning, so it's normal to change them completely. As for changing the color, maybe it's to get rid of bad luck. Many athletes are very superstitious. Those who play football and basketball take penalty kicks and free throws.
I used to like to do lucky moves or something, but it’s actually because those sports require gambling on luck in addition to skills, so I’m not surprised.”
Some sharp-eyed spectators who had watched all the way from the morning noticed these differences after seeing Gu Kun's appearance, and started whispering there.
It's just that they didn't have time to think about the cause and effect behind all this before the game started.
With the sound of the order, Gu Kun jumped out with a "whoosh", even faster than in the semi-finals. Even compared with the preliminaries, his energy and spirit were completely different. It seemed that he could see the indomitable spirit from his movements.
determination.
"It's over, there's no suspense anymore."
After swimming only a few dozen meters, the emotions of the Australian spectators in the stands, who had been aroused like crickets, were extinguished again, because they saw that Thorpe was already several meters behind and had no chance at all.
"I hope my clothes will explode again..." Some imaginative people were looking forward to it, but whenever they dared to murmur to themselves, they would be ridiculed by the people next to them.
"Save it! No one is so stupid as to fall into the same pit twice. They already broke out once in the morning. How can they break out again if they change the style?"
Just a few dozen seconds passed quickly. Gu Kun had manipulated the emotions of the Australians enough and won the championship easily again.
"Champion: Gu Kun. New world record: 19 seconds 88."
For the first time in mankind, a 50-meter freestyle swim broke the 20-second mark! A major historical record breakthrough!
Although this is the seventh time in his life that Gu Kun has broken the 50-meter freestyle world record, it took him five years to gradually break this record from more than 21 seconds to more than 19 seconds. Each time he broke the 50-meter freestyle world record by an average of about 0.2 seconds (9 seconds in total).
opportunities to participate, and the record was not broken twice because the rhythm was not controlled well)
But this is destined to be the most significant time, after all, he broke through the incredibly important barrier of 20 seconds.
It happened that the world record was broken only after a small failure, and fortunately, I decisively gave up wearing Nike swimsuits.
He can definitely say that if Nike is still worn, mankind will lose this opportunity to create history that explores the limits of human potential.
"Oh my god! The 20-second mark has been exceeded! OMG, what happened? Even when it was already so extreme before, it can be improved by nearly 0.2 seconds! Where is the limit of human beings?"
Even though the audience was accustomed to watching Gu Kun make history, such a major breakthrough still made the stands instantly ebullient.
Gu Kun then pursued the victory and won the two final events in the afternoon that day, won two more gold medals, and broke two more world records.
…
Because there is a time difference of 7 to 11 hours between Australia and Oceania.
So when Gu Kun was in an emergency, he took the initiative to pay the penalty for breach of contract, and changed his clothes to participate in the competition, etc., it was still night in Oceania - to be precise, in Oregon, where Nike is headquartered, the time was 7 days later than in Australia.
hours.
Sydney is the easternmost time zone in Australia, which is the East 10th zone. Oregon is below the peanut stew state and above California, and it is on the West Coast time.
When Gu Kun changed his clothes to participate in the men's 50m self-finals at 11 o'clock before noon, it was equivalent to 6 o'clock in the evening at Nike headquarters, just in time for get off work, catching up with traffic, and dinner.
People in Oceania do not work after work. Even if they watch TV for leisure, their biological clock is at least after 8 pm. This led to the fact that when Gu Kun changed his clothes and won the first two gold medals, the people at Nike had not yet reacted.
I didn’t expect crisis public relations.
It wasn't until Gu Kun won the third gold medal of the day, equivalent to 9:30 pm Portland time, that the bad news gradually reached the ears of Nike executives.
Big shots tend to eat late and slowly. They need to talk about something at the dinner table without being easily disturbed. In addition, the speed of Internet information transmission in 2000 requires some delay after all, and is not as developed as in later generations, so Phil
.Nate received the news at the end of a banquet with business partners.
At that time, Phil Knight was about to leave the banquet box of the Woodlock Hotel, a high-end hotel in the most prosperous area of downtown Portland. His female secretary blocked the door with a few faxes in a panic.
"Boss, something happened - I didn't dare to come in and disturb you just now because I was afraid that the supplier would also hear the bad news. It was a major quality accident."
Phil Knight is the founder of Nike, a 63-year-old man. He was also an athlete when he was young. When he was studying at the University of Oregon, he was a long-distance running student. That was in the early 1960s.
.
However, Phil Knight's career as an athlete was not outstanding. His best results were only in Oceania's domestic university games, where he won some titles and brought a little glory to the University of Oregon. As for bringing glory to the country of Oceania,
He is simply not qualified to get the opportunity.
But a few years after retiring, he started a running shoe business with a partner and started a sports brand business, which was quite successful. This was how he founded the Nike family business.
So from this perspective, Nike's historical background is really much shallower than Adidas - even Nike founder Phil Knight wore Adidas running shoes to train and compete when he was an athlete in his youth.
I started working on Nike just halfway through becoming a monk.
It’s just that the nationality of Oceania has given the brand a fashionable and trendy cultural blessing, and its subsequent business lines and design concepts are indeed remarkable, allowing Nike to surpass its predecessors. However, Nike does not have the ultimate pursuit of Adidas in terms of quality.
In fact, if you think about it for a while, you will know that if the products from Oceania are more durable than those from Germany, why not use your own shortcomings to attack the other's strengths? People from Oceania will not be so foolish as to compare quality with the Germans.
Fashion and trends do not necessarily require quality. The key is fashion. The requirements for quality are only slightly stronger than those for luxury goods. That is to say, you can’t make mistakes when exercising and don’t break them during competitions. (Luxury goods are
No need for quality at all, the easier it is to break, the more proud I am)
Phil Knight has also been in business for more than 30 years, and he is used to all kinds of emergencies that the company may encounter, so when the female secretary was first surprised, he didn't take it too seriously.
panic.
"Kate, don't be anxious, speak slowly." He calmly found a seat on the sofa and took a leisurely sip of his after-dinner coffee.
The female secretary took a deep breath: "We exclusively sponsor the swimsuit for the Olympic Games. Gu Kun, the world champion and the most record-breaking swimsuit, burst during the competition. The incident first occurred at around 4 p.m."
Knight frowned and thought for a while: "A swimsuit burst. It was an accident. It's not something that can't be fooled. Even if Gu Kun is indeed a top sports celebrity, we can give him some comfort and make him admit that there was something wrong during use.
Improper operation, such as because the clothes are too tight, pulling too much in advance will cause aging..."
The female secretary was about to cry: "But the problem is that only one and a half hours after the incident, our company has not received a crisis response. Gu Kun in Sydney was anxious for the next game and asked his team leader, Lan
Minister Luo Haililuo of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, in accordance with the sponsor's breach of contract terms disclosed by the Olympic Committee, paid a fine of US$470,000 and bought out the possibility of not wearing Nike in subsequent games!"
"What? He would rather pay $470,000 for 'not wearing Nike'?!" Phil Knight jumped up from the sofa.
Even with 35 years of experience in the business world, he could not resist this shock.
What a blessing!
This is a complete replica of "Buffett lived to the age of 88 and did not have enough experience to see the meltdown and negative crude oil prices."
What a huge blow to Nike's goodwill.
After being stunned for a short time, Phil Knight was almost furious: "Does that Gu Kun want to imitate me? Did he open his own sports brand? Just like Li Ning? So he wants to step on me for business competition."
Am I in charge? This bitch is damned! FACK!"
Who knows that Knight himself is not an elite athlete? It is easy for people to judge others by their own opinions. As a retired athlete who changed his career, he entered the competition with Adidas in a corner. Naturally, he would now suspect that Gu Kun is the same person.
.
Unfortunately, the female secretary's answer disappointed him again: "I'm sorry... Our colleagues in the public relations department were also skeptical at first, and they also made an urgent investigation, but so far they have found no sign that Gu Kun operates any of his own sports brands.
There is no record of holding shares in any existing mainstream sports brands."
Phil Knight fell back on the sofa with absent-minded eyes, staring ahead blankly.
If all this is true, the blow to Nike's goodwill will be even greater, and there will be no room for maneuver for dog to eat dog.
How could there be no evidence that Gu Kun and Adidas colluded beforehand?
There must be some compensation afterwards, but it should be after the limelight has passed, and there will be no way to get it back.