Egyptian Athletes Outfitted With Knock-Off Nike Apparel
Apparently, the Olympics isn’t just about athleticism anymore. It’s also about fashion and fashion politics. 
Recently, there was a bit of a dust up when we learned that Ralph Lauren’s U.S. American Olympic outfits were going to be made in China. Now, however, it’s the Egyptians who are being forced to defend criticisms of their apparel.
The Egyptian Olympic committee is doing something that is both illegal and highly embarrassing. They’re dressing their athletes in knock-off Nike sports gear.
As far as the Egyptian government is concerned, they aren’t making any apologies to anyone for what they’re doing.
Gen. Mahmoud Ahmed Ali, the committe chairman, told the AP in a phone interview that they “signed with a Chinese distributor in light of Egypt’s economic situation.” The situation being that after the country’s revolution, it’s broke. The country usually gets a good deal of money from tourism, but you can understand how a revolution and a new government would make tourists a little wary.
Nike is upset, and has already responded:
Nike is highly concerned that if these allegations are true, the athletes will have received products that do not meet Nike’s quality standards. We are now in discussions with them to see if a solution can be reached.
The Egyptian athletes aren’t too happy about their knock-off outfits either. This from synchronized swimmer Yomna Khallaf:
It’s so frustrating that we had to pay extra 2000 (Egyptian) pounds to have other proper stuff to wear so that we can look okay not even good.
Khallaf went on to say that the team’s bags have Nike logos but zippers that say “Adidas”. Sad. Hopefully Nike will help them reach a resolution – maybe an installment plan. Lay-away for Olympic athletes.
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