T
P&R Têxteis has begun manufacturing the outfits that hundreds of Olympic athletes, of several sports and different countries, will wear in the 2020 Olympic Games.
Adidas, Asics and Tyr are some of the brands that chose P&R for the development and manufacturing of their outfits. The company from Barcelos also equips the Olympic Portuguese athletes in at least two sport modalities – cycling and triathlon.
“The prototypes of the outfits have already been developed and approved. The orders arrived. We have started producing already because everything must be submitted early spring”, explains Duarte Nuno Pinto, 64, economist and CEO of P&R. For the Japanese brand Asics, P&R will supply the outfits of the South-African rugby team (the Springboks).
As it stands, most of the Adidas equipment, both for individual sports (athletics, tennis…) and team sports (like the French handball team or the All-Blacks), are made by P&R, which will also be represented in the Olympic pool, as Tyr supplier.
The Portuguese company is experienced in Olympic matters. Usain Bolt (London 2012) and Nelson Évora (Beijing 2008) achieved gold medals while wearing Made in Portugal P&R outfits.
Since Atlanta’96 that P&R supplies Adidas uninterruptedly, both for the Summer and Winter Olympics.
“In textiles, we are the oldest Adidas regular supplier in the whole world”, claims the P&R CEO, a company that employs 220 workers and presented a turnover of 15 million euro, of which over 90% is exported.
Always with the future in mind, the company from Barcelos is already developing the outfits that the German Olympic athletes will wear in the 2022 Beijing Winter Games, for ski, biathlon and cross-country.
“We are making wind tunnel tests, in Germany, to fine tune our solutions to the weather conditions predicted for 2022 in Beijing”, relays Duarte Nuno.
“We are a highly technological company, focused and specialized in very technical clothing for sports”, concludes Duarte Nuno, a sports addict who was a football goalkeeper in his youth, at the junior team of Gil Vicente, and played volleyball professionally at Óquei de Barcelos.