Three Swiss startups awarded the ISPO Awards

The ISPO Award is a global and highly regarded annual award designed to recognise extraordinary sports products. The award acts as a seal of quality for the sports goods industry, which lead sport sectors, retailers and customers towards the best sports products of the season. ISPO Award is divided into the five segments: Action, Outdoor, Ski, Performance and Health & Fitness which each are again divided into product-specific categories.

ISPO Product of the year 2017/18
This year, over 500 companies applied for the award and only five won the product of the year award. Among them is the Swiss startup On, which was recognised for the design and top features of its Cloudflash running shoes. "Cloudflash running shoes have a clean and harmonious look, demonstrating excellent attention to detail – an extremely credible, high-grade performance product", says Aleks Tatic, jury member of ISPO. Coudflash comprises of 14 small but powerful cloud elements. The Speedboard, built from energy-transition material Pebax, loads with impact energy to release it all upon toe-off. An innovative hybrid sockliner gives extra comfort and the performance heel-cap hugs the heel for a perfect fit. The Cloudflash is made for speed.

Gold winners of the ISPO award 2017
The startup On received an additional award “Gold winner” for their product Cloudflow running shoes. Cloudflow’s foam offers soft cushioning in every step. 18 Cloud elements lock firm to provide a solid foundation for a powerful take-off. The Speedboard in the midsole with responsive flex and rocker provides a natural rolling process and the reinforcement in the forefoot makes the shoe even more agile. “Impressive due to its lightweight design an extraordinary running comfort. Plus it deserves an extra award for seminal trainer design”, said Urs Weber, Runner‘s World, Editor.

The product Pomocup was also crowned as Gold winner in the ski segment under the category Tracking Hardware & Mobile Devices. Pomocup was born from a partnership between POMOCA and Gait Up. Pomocup is the first wearable for ski mountaineering. Attached to the skis with a smart clipping system, it tracks the motion and provides metrics for measuring and improving skier technique and performance. Users are able to sync with their smartwatch or phone to view and share their transition times and performance metrics.

ISPO Brand new 2017
ISPO also crowned more candidates from the other awards. In the award “ISPO Brand new 2017”, swiss startup PIQ was crowned as the winner in the category wearables.

PIQ is a subsidiary of Octonion, a company based at EPFL Innovation Park specializing in software and services related to sensors. PIQ ROBOT is a powerful wearable Nano-computer based on GAIA, a self-learning giga processor that analyses more than a million data motion points in real time. Without using a smartphone, the LED display shows meaningful data helping users improve their game. After sports, PIQ Sport Intelligence and its mobile apps allows users share the content with the community.

Pic: On