ISPO Award Winners 2023 Announced

The international jury of experts, made up of industry professionals and sports enthusiasts from the ISPO Collaborators Club, meets a total of four times a year to select the best products in sports. Now, after the third ISPO Award jury meeting in 2023, the winners have been selected. We present the winning products and explain which trends the jury observed.

27 sports and outdoor products from a wide range of categories have once again made it onto the winners' podium. Products that stand for the unbroken innovative spirit of the industry and for its willingness to continuously develop. How can you tell? For example, when you look at the new materials for products like personalizable shin guards and even lighter sleeping pads, new fabric constructions for down chambers, even more versatile lamp systems and new target groups, such as menopausal women. As in previous award rounds, the topic of sustainability also played a central role, but not as prominently as in the past. The use of recycled materials has become the new standard for sustainably oriented products, and now brands are focusing on other sustainability solutions such as the consideration of recyclability and repairability.

Trends in focus: More comfort and versatility

Many of the products submitted had one thing in common: comfort played an important role. The jury discovered some new solutions. Comfort is a broad field - many functions of outdoor and sports products ultimately serve comfort. Equipment and clothing should be as light, comfortable, temperature-regulating and protective as possible. To improve these features even further, brands found new approaches such as electrically powered heating components that are becoming increasingly flexible and invisible, while the necessary batteries are getting smaller and lighter.

Versatility is another trendy topic that product developers in the industry are currently dealing with extensively. Products should be as multisport-compatible and durable as possible. One approach, for example, is product sets made up of different components. This creates an "aha" effect and the products can be expanded and changed in just a few steps.

Jury of industry professionals and ISPO Collaborators

As different as the products were, they had one thing in common: they were truly convincing and impressed the six-member jury. This time, the jury members met for "Workation" in St. Vigil in South Tyrol to spend two days examining all the products that had made it into the final selection. Once again, the expert jury consisted of two groups: the permanent expert jury team, made up of magazine maker and snowboard veteran Andi Spies, outdoor journalist and professor of sports journalism & digitalization in sports Martina Wengenmeir, and textile expert and trade journalist Regina Henkel. As in previous rounds, the jury was also supported by enthusiastic amateur athletes from the ISPO Collaborators Club, who are newly selected each time, in order to incorporate the consumer's perspective into the selection process. This time, multisport athlete and mountain fan Hanna Betzle from Germany, ski instructor Christian Krobath from Austria, and multisport athlete and mountaineer Sebastiano Giampiccolo from Italy joined the team.

According to the new concept introduced in 2022, the ISPO Award jury will meet a total of four times a year. However, brands can apply throughout the year and decide in which quarter they would like to present their product or service. The winners will be presented at the ISPO Award Exhibition at ISPO Munich from November 28 to 30, 2023.

The winners after the third jury meeting: