Several athletes and coaches from the Romanian Olympic team complained of the poor quality of the official sports equipment of the delegation.
They mostly complain about the official Kappa t-shirts, blouses and track suits that they wear all the time, when they go to the warming-up, in the competition halls or in the Olympic village.
Without revealing their names, some athletes talked to the journalists from tolo.ro.
“This Kappa doesn’t original! It’s like a fake, like being counterfeit,” they revealed.
The athletes argued that some equipment cast or the color faded. Besides, there are less usual signs on the equipment and the tags are partially cut. Some athletes’ sweatpants got torn.
“When an athlete used Autan spray against mosquitos and then put off his track suit to put on short, he found out his leg got blue from the track suit’s blue color,” said the reporters.
“The polo t-shirt cast. I didn’t wash it for it’s the third day that I am wearing it. And it looks like it has two years old”, said another athlete.
The journalists also saw that the white tags on the inside of some t-shirts where the brand and the producing country had to be inscribed, are partially cut.
So, instead of the Italian Kappa brand that had to be inscribed, the name of another clothing company appears: Sol’s Europe from France. The company seems to be a subcontractor, but so far it has not been confirmed.
The head of the Romanian Olympic Sports Committee (COSR) Alin Petrache was asked to comment that.
“How can I help them ? This is what we are facing. The public auction system discourages the negotiations. Any company may show up… It’s hard for me, too, for the SEAP system maybe protects the public servants, but at COSR we don’t want this kind of mentality,” Petrache told tolo.ro.
As for the company that equipped the national Olympic team at the previous summer Olympic games in Beijing and London, the COSR head said that Asics hasn’t taken part in the auction this year. “We’ll try to contact the companies that want a more aggressive approach on the market, maybe Under Armour, maybe another ones, we’ll see,” Petrache concluded.
The Romanian company that delivered the clothing equipment for the national Olympic team has 5 employees and has had 10 contracts with the Romanian Olympic Sports Committee since 2010, while the total value of the contracts mount to EUR 370,000.
Pax Creative Ltd supplied the t-shirts, sneakers, caps, bags and kit bags, overall a contract worth EUR 130,000 for a quantity ranging from 148 to 168 sets, meaning EUR 800 for a set.
About three weeks ago, the Romanian Olympic Sports Committee (COSR) hosted the presentation of the new clothing for Romanian athletes to compete at Rio Olympic Games.