Journey to the ‘heart’ of the world leader in gym and fitness equipment, supplier for the ninth time to the Paris 2024 Games
CÉSENA (ITALIA), 13 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Next to the A-14 highway, with an exit to Césena, the land that still idolizes the brilliant Italian cyclist Marco ‘The Pirate’ Pantani, rises ‘Techhogym Village’, the headquarters of the world leader in gym and fitness equipment and which In Paris 2024 it will be the official and exclusive supplier, for the ninth time, of this technology at the Olympic Games.
“Technogym is the sum of technology, sport and design,” summarizes its Communications Director, Enrico Manaresi, in an exclusive visit – only two Spanish media outlets – to the ‘heart’ of the company in which the dreams of the athletes are ‘made’. Olympic athletes who will conquer fans around the world this summer.
A handful of robots are busy mowing the grass in circular motions. The image seems to be taken from a sequence of the famous Netflix series ‘Black Mirror’. With nearly 150,000 square meters, 60,000 of them covered, the ‘Village’ and the curves of its roof designed by the architectural team of Antonio Citterio and Patricia Viel evoke the nearby Adriatic Sea, and simulate previously housing the wines of a winery that sports equipment in more than 85,000 wellness centers and half a million homes on the planet.
The idea of weight training equipment, treadmills costing up to 14,000 euros and bicycles that ‘climb’ legendary mountain passes such as the Alpe d’Huez arose in a garage. After training as an industrial designer, Nerio Alessandri (Cesena, April 8, 1961) founded Technogym in 1983, at the age of 22, a symbiosis of ‘technology’ and ‘gym’, and the result of his passion for sport and design. .
In the early nineties, Alessandri defined the concept of ‘wellness’ as a lifestyle whose objective is to improve the quality of people’s lives thanks to the practice of physical activity on a regular basis, eating a healthy diet and applying a mental attitude. positive.
Three decades later, it is estimated that around 55 million people use Technogym products every day. The Italian company employs more than 2,500 people, half in the ‘Village’ of Césena, in its 14 subsidiaries in Europe, the United States, Asia, the Middle East, Australia and South America, and exports 90 percent of what it manufactures to more than 100 countries.
THE ‘CITY OF WELL-BEING’ INAUGURATED BY CLINTON
Opened in September 2012 by then-Italian President Giorgio Napolitano and former White House Chief Bill Clinton, Technogym Village houses the research and innovation center, the manufacturing plant and a modern, glass-enclosed wellness area dedicated to physical activity. , interior design and wellness culture.
The project is part of the initiative that aims to turn the Romagna region, which brings together the most famous spa and thermal centers in Italy, into the most important benchmark for wellness in Europe.
This factory of Olympic dreams is reached after flying to Bologna and spending an hour on the road until reaching a complex of low buildings, built with natural materials, wood and glass, surrounded by nature and with a reduced environmental impact to integrate into the environment.
This City of Wellbeing combines offices, meeting rooms, a gym and guided sessions of, among other sports, indoor cycling for the employees themselves. “We have two hours to eat and train,” explains Gaia Passeri, press officer, during a tour of the facilities.
In the first room, the prototypes that the founder designed in his garage in the remote eighties are displayed. Next, the factory and warehouse from which the 1,200 pieces of equipment will be made available to the 14,900 athletes, including Olympians and Paralympians, from 200 countries who will participate in Paris 2024.
Technogym will equip 29 training centers and will have a team of coaches so that athletes can train before and during the Games. The main one will be in the Olympic and Paralympic Village of Saint Denis, but there will be others in the competition venues and in villages outside the French capital in Lille, Marseille and Tahiti.
“At Technogym we work every day to create the most innovative products and digital technologies, helping athletes around the world to improve their performance and achieve their goals. The collaboration with the Olympic Games means a lot to us because they represent a unique platform for share our commitment to spreading the culture of wellness, sports and health throughout the world,” its founder Nerio Alessandri tells Europa Press.
For Technogym, the Olympic Games are like ‘Formula 1’ for the automobile industry. “They represent a unique opportunity in terms of research and innovation, which we then transfer to our standard products to offer consumers the same level of quality and innovation,” added Alessandri.
By simply scanning a QR code with their mobile phone, the athlete will be able to access the brand’s ecosystem in the Technogym application, which includes remote sessions scheduled by their own trainer and customize the height of the different cardio or bodybuilding devices to prepare. his assault on the Olympic podium.
WHAT IS ALONSO’S ‘REAL AGE’?
Eight times ‘Olympic’ -Sydney 2000, Athens 2004, Turin 2006, Beijing 2008, London 2012, Rio 2016, Pyeongchang 2018 and Tokyo 2020-, Technogym is also the preferred brand of the most prestigious sports clubs in the world such as Real Madrid, AC Milan, Inter, Juventus, Paris Saint Germain and Chelsea, in football; Ferrari, McLaren, Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso, in Formula 1, the tennis player Rafa Nadal and, among others, the PGA golf circuit.
With more than 50 international design awards such as the Compasso d’Oro and the Red Dot Design Award, innovation is another of the hallmarks of the company based in Césena de Pantani. One of its latest innovations is ‘Technogym Checkup’, a technology based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) that measures the ‘real age’ of a person.
Data on body composition, strength, balance, mobility and cognitive abilities are processed by Technogym’s AI ‘digital trainer’, and transformed into a personalized training protocol for the user.
The analysis is carried out in a room decorated with a Ferrari car, photographs of the former cyclist Gianni Bugno, the triathlete Javier Gómez Noya, the seven-time formula one world champion Michael Schumacher and, among others, the driver Fernando Alonso. ‘What will be Alonso’s ‘real age’?’, this letterman thinks before the AI shows his on the screen.