Track & Planet

UPDATE: Lauren is the Women’s Double Decathlon World Champion! More to follow soon.

August 2021 in France we debuted our first local wool knitwear garments in a commissioned collection for climate scientist and decathlete Lauren Kuntz, PhD.

The decathlon is the ultimate competition for an athlete.

Lauren explains:

"'The world's greatest athlete.' That title is given to the Olympic champion of the decathlon, a competition that combines ten track and field events over the course of two days. The decathlon is unlike any other event. It requires an athlete not only to be strong and fast, sprint, jump, and throw but also a master of technique across many different disciplines: pole vault and javelin, discus throw, high jump, and hurdles. And of course, it requires mental endurance and fortitude....The competition itself tests your ability to stay focused, poised, and in control as your body reaches the point of complete exhaustion over two days of all-out effort."

Preparation for this supreme contest requires hours of training every day perfecting the fine movements specific to each event as well as building strength with weights and speed on the track.

While all of this is daunting enough, the greatest obstacle the female athlete faces is not her own personal limits, but the social barrier that denies a woman the right to even compete in the ten-event championship, relegating her to the lesser status seven-event heptathlon.

Lauren and like-minded determined female athletes are changing this.

In 2020, Lauren petitioned the International Association for Ultra Multievents to compete in a world-record attempt at the women's double decathlon in the 29th IAUM championship, August 21-22, in Épinal, France. She is joined by four French female competitors delivering a powerful message that gender is no barrier to excellence, on or off the field.

Vanquishing any shadow of a doubt about their readiness – physical and mental – they vie all out in a double decathlon. Also called "icosathlon," the double decathlon is twenty events held over two days with a one-hour pause/break in the middle of each day. Double the challenge, double the effort, double the blow to second-class status, diminished expectations, and unequal opportunity.

Women are here to win (Day 1), win (Day 2), win every day, any day, all the days of our lives because we can.

Day 2      

• 100 meters hurdles

• discus throw

• 200 meters sprint

• pole vault

• 3,000 meters sprint

  pause

• 400 meters hurdles

• javelin throw

• 1,500 meters sprint

• triple jump

• 10,000 meters

Inspiration

We tap powerful precedent of athlete activism and tribute developing Lauren's double decathlon garments. The gloved fists of Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised in civil rights solidarity in the 1968 Tokyo Olympics; the dark-colored shorts Wyomia Tyuss wore in her medal bid, not the regulation white worn by fellow teammates. Colin Kaepernick's resolute resistance, kneeling during the National Anthem in the NFL; Naomi Osaka's Black Lives Matter "Say Their Names" face masks worn for every match of her victorious 2020 US Open.

The asymmetric, color-block catsuit Serena Williams debuted in the 2021 Australian Open honors 1984 Olympian and fashion icon Florence Griffith Joyner. Winning her first Wimbledon title, Ashleigh Barty, of Ngarigo ancestry, paid tribute to predecessor Evonne Goolagong Cawley, of Wiradjuri Aboriginal descent. Barty styled her Wimbledon whites after the floral motif and scallop-hemmed outfit Goolagong Cawley wore in her 1971 grass court London triumph, custom-made by the renowned tennis couturier Ted Tinling, who sought to capture Goolagong Cawley’s grace in movement in his design.

A track-and-field champion, Lauren is an equally powerful and dedicated planet champion. Her 2018 PhD dissertation examined the role of oceans in climate change; before co-founding her renewable energy startup Gaiascope in 2019, Lauren held a post-doctoral fellowship sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at the University of Washington.

Lauren is acutely aware of the vital interplay of planetary health and personal well-being. Athletic gear is typically wholly or partially synthetic – carbon-heavy, petroleum-based textiles that are toxic to produce, shed microplastics into the air and water during use phase, require frequent washing, and clog landfills for decades at end of use, releasing toxins into the soil and groundwater.

Garments made of wool from locally bred, pasture-raised sheep, locally processed to the highest environmental standards, with low-to-zero waste construction and locally manufactured are the most ecological our champion climate scientist-decathlete can wear in her world-record breaking, gender-barrier busting title bid.

Peak performance athlete, peak performance garments – for health & planet.

Team Lauren

Remarkable overlaps are revealed making garments that heal, not harm, the earth and training the body and mind of an elite athlete, offering insight into how we as makers and wearers of garments can dress for health and planet, digging deep for the ultimate win – a climate hospitable to human life now and for generations yet to come.

Below are conversations we’re having with key players of Lauren’s team.