On Running
Pro Elite

A Garden Hose in Zürich (2010–2021)

On is the youngest brand in this archive by decades, and its origin story is told by the company itself with a straight face: Olivier Bernhard — a three-time duathlon world champion from Switzerland — wanted a landing that cushioned and a takeoff that fired, and prototyped it by fixing segments of garden hose to the sole of a running shoe. That is corporate legend, documented and consistently retold, and we pass it on with that label. What is beyond legend is what it became: CloudTec, the hollow pods that compress on impact and lock firm for push-off, launched from Zürich in 2010 by Bernhard with David Allemann and Caspar Coppetti, and an early ISPO BrandNew award for the prototype.

The next decade reads like a startup chart. In November 2019 Roger Federer bought a stake reported at around three percent — not an endorsement deal but a co-entrepreneur's seat, with product input to match. In September 2021 On Holding listed on the New York Stock Exchange at a valuation around 7.3 billion dollars. By then the athletics project this page is about had already begun.

The Club Model (2020–2026)

In August 2020 — ten years old, still best known for recreational road shoes — On founded its first professional team: the On Athletics Club, based in Boulder, Colorado, with three-time US Olympian Dathan Ritzenhein as head coach and eight founding athletes, Joe Klecker the first signing. The model matters: where the old brands built their presence through federation contracts, On built a club — salaries, coaching, altitude camps, one badge. OAC Europe followed in 2022 out of St. Moritz, and OAC Oceania in Melbourne in 2023 under Craig Mottram.

The club's track results arrived fast. Yared Nuguse took the American mile record to 3:43.97 at the 2023 Prefontaine Classic, and in February 2025 broke the world indoor mile record with 3:46.63 at the Millrose Games — a record Jakob Ingebrigtsen took back five days later, which is the honest way to tell it. Alicia Monson set North American records over 3000 m indoors and 10,000 m in 2023, then lost sixteen months to knee surgery; her comeback is still being rebuilt. Geordie Beamish's championship titles — Glasgow indoors in 2024, the Tokyo steeplechase in 2025 — and Olli Hoare's Commonwealth 1500 m of 2022 were won in New Zealand's and Australia's federation kit and belong to those stories; the club's own line is the roads and the circuit.

The Obiri Years

The signing that changed the club's ceiling came in January 2022: Hellen Obiri — two world titles and two Olympic silvers on the track, zero marathons run — moved to Boulder to be coached by Ritzenhein inside the OAC. Four years later her road record reads like a decade's work: Boston champion in 2023 and again in 2024 — the first back-to-back Boston winner since 2005, closing the second one with a 15:06 five-kilometre split — New York champion in 2023.

Then the record. On 2 November 2025 she won New York a second time in 2:19:51, taking down Margaret Okayo's course record after twenty-two years. She has kept racing at the front since — second in Boston 2025 behind Sharon Lokedi's course record, second in London in April 2026 — and remains the flagship of On's road roster.

The Robot-Sprayed Shoe

On's product statement of the decade arrived on 15 July 2024: LightSpray, the manufacturing process behind the Cloudboom Strike LS, in which a robotic arm sprays roughly 1.5 kilometres of thermoplastic filament straight onto the sole, building a one-piece upper — no laces, no seams, about 30 grams — in around three minutes. During the Paris Games the company ran the robot live at its On Labs pop-up in the city.

The shoe's résumé preceded its launch: Obiri had already won Boston 2024 in the prototype, and her 2:19:51 New York record of 2025 was run in the spray-on shoe. The astonishment in the coverage was about the method — a racing shoe built by a robot in minutes — not about any rules dispute; there is no record of a conflict with World Athletics regulations.

The 2026 Turn: Dressing the Azzurri

For fifteen years the On model was the club, not the country: no federation kits, no national teams — the OAC badge instead. That is precisely what makes February 2026 a hinge. On signed a multi-year technical partnership with FIDAL, the Italian athletics federation, and on 19 February presented the Azzurri kit — Savoy Blue with a deep-sea “Warp Dots” graphic, race singlets and laser-cut aero skinsuits alongside ceremonial and travel wear. It is the first major athletics federation we know On to have dressed, and it moves the brand into the exact channel this archive collects: national team issue.

The club's own racewear had been rebuilt a season earlier: in April 2025 On redesigned the OAC identity and race kit — bras, singlets, briefs, shorts, tights and speed suits, in one colourway reserved for On's contracted athletes and another for its community clubs — debuted by Obiri at that year's Boston Marathon. The single On piece in this archive belongs to that athlete-channel generation.

From this chapter · in the archiveON Running Pro Elite 2025 Women Black Racing ShortsRace-issued On 2025 women's racing shorts — the only piece of the youngest athlete channel in this archive, from the season of the club's kit redesign.120,00 €View piece →

The Anatomy of On Athlete Kit

The On athlete channel issues the full racewear set — bras, singlets, briefs, shorts, tights and speed suits — but almost none of it circulates: the club is small, young, and its athletes are still wearing their issue. One garment type has reached this archive so far.

Racing Shorts

The one garment type of the On athlete channel to have reached this archive so far — competition-cut race shorts from the 2025 club season.

ON Running Pro Elite 2025 Women Black Racing Shorts120,00 €View piece →

Authentication follows the same rules as every brand here — structure over logos, competition cloth, scarcity that matches the channel. Our authentication guide covers the tells.

The On Issue in Our Archive

One cycle, one piece, honestly counted: the On athlete channel is the youngest in this archive, and almost nothing has escaped it yet. What we hold is listed below; when it sells, the cycle only gets smaller.

2025

2025The first escaped piece1 piece in the archive · 1 in stock

The season of the OAC kit redesign and the New York record — race-issued On women's racing shorts in black, the first piece of this channel to surface in the archive.

ON Running Pro Elite 2025 Women Black Racing Shorts120,00 €View Piece →