2024 was a big year for the program here at Bandit HQ. Thank you all from the bottom of our Bandit hearts for coming along with us on this ride and supporting our projects.
Now, take a quick stroll down short-term memory lane with us as we look back at our favorite moments from the year...
1. Bandit for Saint Vincent & The Grenadines, Paris 2024 Olympics. Shafiqua Maloney enters the Olympics ranked #27 in the world and leaves as #4 narrowly missing out on a Bronze medal. Co-founder of France's Eight8Lines helps us make the announcement as a La Poste worker delivering the Olympic kits.
2. The Unsponsored Project. Bandit supports 35 athletes with 100% unbranded apparel to represent themselves on the track rather than providing free ad space for brands. As part of these short-term contracts, we also provided athletes with cash to cover their flights, hotels and meals. All contracts featured an opt-out clause that allowed the athletes to immediately void our contract if another brand wanted to sign them to a larger deal. Sports Marketing thought-leader Jordan Roger's reel covering the project has racked up 4.7M views, and 240k likes.
3. Dialed: Malcolm Ebanks runs The Speed Project Solo. Bronx legend and Bandit athlete #1 Malcolm Ebanks kicks off our newest Youtube franchise series "Dialed" taking you behind the scenes of athletes before, during, and after their biggest running career moments.
4. The Spring Collection. Photographer and Bandit Athlete, Joe Greer, shoots the first campaign of the year with us creating some of our favorite brand images ever. The Williams Twins would come back in October as part of our NYC Marathon campaign.
5. The OTQ Project. The conclusion of our multi-year program supporting friends as they chased their dream of racing at the Marathon Olympic Trials in Orlando.
6. The 6-Pocket Nova Crop™ is named to TIME Magazine's Best Inventions of 2024. A true testament to our mission to Evolve Running, our innovative women's run top features four pockets for gels and two phone-sized pockets—becoming the first of its kind.
7. The 7 Pocket Superbeam™ Quarter-Tights are named to Runner's World Gear of the Year. Another meaningful W for the product team. The quarter length of our patented men's compression bottoms features 4 gel and 2 phone sized pockets, a back zipper pocket, an anti-chafing custom waistband, Italian grip tape at the hem, and external drawstrings.
8. The grand opening of our store at 328 Bleecker Street in the West Village. Still trying to top the video our announcement video (not sure we ever will). Over 400 runners from across the NYC community came together for our housewarming <3.
9. The Bandit Men's & Women's Open Brooklyn Mile. Local legends Alana Levy and Brendan Martin take home the hardware and set a couple heat records along the way.
10. The Program, our 16 week marathon training experience with ASICS. Providing free access to world-class training plans and guidance to thousands of athletes virtually and 250 in-person during Fall marathon season.
11. The Fall 2024 Collection. After two straight seasonal collections spent shooting in a studio, we busted out of there and went back to our roots in the streets of NYC.
12. Bandit x Berlin Braves. Ahead of the Berlin Marathon, we collaborated with the legendary Berlin Braves, a Bridge the Gap club who paved the way for the booming number of new clubs today.
13. Marathon Course Design Corp. for the Chicago Marathon. Inspired by the city’s storied history as an architectural epicenter, our Chicago capsule and pop-up immersed you into a fictional world of the race architect's vintage studio.
14. Sound Mind Your Business for the NYC Marathon. Our collaboration with ASICS for the NYC Marathon takes you into a sonic race visualization experience.
15. Our billboard at the halfway point of the NYC Marathon. True story: a guy walked into our office, said he was putting a brand new billboard up on the Pulaski bridge, and offered it to us because he was a fan of the brand. That's family.
16. The Winter 2024 Collection. For the final collection of the year, we took three athletes to remote parts of Iceland to bring to life the idea of the "Mental Terrain" we face during the toughest running conditions of the year.
17. Dine & Dash with Chef James Kent. NYC native, Two Michelin Star chef, 15th best bar in the world, graffiti artist, sneaker collector, Basquiat owner, and all-around legend, Chef James Kent took us into his culinary world and shared about his mission to use running to help change post-shift culture in the restaurant world.
Chef Jamal James Kent tragically and unexpectedly passed away this year. After a long pause on the Dine & Dash series following Chefs passing, we'll be bringing back more episodes in his honor in 2025.
