In April 2006 Mizuno celebrates it's 100th anniversary
Since the company's founding, Mizuno has pursued a course of business aimed at contributing to society through better sporting goods and sports promotion. We owe our success to the many people, including those in the sports industry, customers who favour our brand of sporting goods and many other stakeholders. We wish to thank each and every one of you.
Rihachi Mizuno was born in 1884 in Ogaki, Gifu Prefecture, a town hit by a major earthquake in 1891. At the age of 13 he left for Osaka with the hope of rebuilding the Mizuno family fortune. At the age of 18 he saw a baseball game played by the Daisan High School baseball club and was immediately fascinated by baseball.
After returning to Osaka from service in the Russo-Japanese War, in 1906 he established Mizuno Brothers Ltd. and started selling order-made athletic uniforms. With a focus on production technologies, he also began to manufacture sports equipment. He hosted the Kansei Students’ Federation Baseball Competition in 1913, the predecessor of the present All Japan High School Baseball Championship. In the same year the company began to manufacture baseball gloves and baseball bats.
In 1936, on the 30th anniversary of the company's founding, Mizuno began to produce gliders under the theme of "Sports: from land and sea to the sky." Within a few years, a Mizuno glider set the Japanese record for height and time aloft for a glider.
After the Second World War, Mizuno obtained many patents and utility model rights, and continued to manufacture products of exceptional functionality and quality. Mizuno became more actively involved with the Olympics with each of the games held in Japan - the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, 1972 Sapporo Winter Olympics, and the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics.
As a gold sponsor at the Nagano Olympics, Mizuno provided the outfits (made completely of recyclable materials) for over 24,000 people, both staff and volunteers.
At Mizuno we pledge to put our wholehearted effort into building a peaceful, healthy world through the promotion of sports in the 21st century. In particular we wish to help children around the world enjoy sports and grow up healthy in body and mind.
"The key to our sports promotion is that we at Mizuno love sports ourselves, which leads to our deep understanding of them and encourages us to never stop striving to produce products through the eyes of the sportsman."
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