One of the things that I found most surprising was that Horst had tried to hide his profits from his parents. He had begun to do so well at his branch by spreading out into different regions and different areas of sports products that he was worried that his parents would freak out. He didn’t want to overshadow his parents but at the same time he didn’t want to just quit selling his sportswear to distributors. Horst had asked some of his managers to truncate the branches figures to disguise the fact that their exports were higher than that of the branch his parents were running.

During the 1972 Olympics, the swimmer Mark Spitz won seven gold medals and set several World records. Horst Dassler saw this as an opportunity to get into the swimwear business but Adi would not do it. Instead of starting swimwear with Adidas Horst decided to start a separate company that would make swimwear. Horst called this new company Arena and signed a deal with Spitz when he retired after the 1972 Olympics. Horst Dassler grew this new business and at the World Championships in Cali, Columbia, about two thirds of the swimmers wore Arena. I think it is very cool that Horst Dassler started this business separately from Adidas and was able to grow it so fast.

A little while before the start of the 1972 Munich Olympics, Adidas had started to produce clothing. Adi used to say “I’m not interested in rags,” but was eventually persuaded by some German soccer coaches to get them some sweatpants. Adi’s wife Käthe also thought he should start making clothing to go with Adidas shoes. In 1972, Hans Fick designed the Trefoil logo and Adidas was allowed to place it on Olympic shirts. Adidas also made tracksuits for the athletes to wear around the Olympic village and other sportswear for Olympic events. I think that it is very cool that Adidas was allowed to do this when the Olympics were still supposed to be an amateur event.