The Adidas Gazelle is making its return to the world’s biggest stage. This year, ahead of the Summer Olympics in Paris, Adidas has released a pair of Gazelle Indoors that takes on the Olympic theme and torches it.
UK retailer Offspring has the Gazelle Indoors for sale, which has a red upper with white pinstripes, a green heel tab, and a gum sole. But the crucial detail on the shoe is the tongue, where the Adidas Trefoil logo takes the form of the Olympic torch, with each flame done up in a different color of the Olympic rings. The sneakers are inspired by the Olympics and not an official Olympics product.
The Gazelle Indoor has been having a moment over the past couple of years, partly due to the popularity of the similar Samba and Spezial, but also because the silhouette was used in Adidas’ Gucci collaboration from 2022. It was worn by the likes of Harry Styles, and you’d see general release pairs of the shoe sold out across the internet. There’s also a version of the Gazelle Indoor from Bad Bunny coming out in the near future.
But the Gazelle for the Olympics is cool because it harkens back to one of Adidas’ biggest moments in the celebration of sport. At the 1972 Olympics, swimmer Mark Spitz was given advice by Horst Dassler (the son of Adidas founder Adi Dassler) to thrust a pair of blue and white Gazelles into the air on the podium. Spitz won seven medals at that Olympics and 11 in his career.
This year’s Olympic Gazelles are now available here.
