With Olympic Games just finished, we wanted to tell you about this amazing history of the Traditional Missoni Company.

1921
Ottavio Missoni, called Tai, was born on 11 February 1921 in Ragusa (Dalmatia). During his childhood he moves to Zadar, where “all games were based on running”.  He starts competing with Zara Gymnastics in running and high jump, and also practices swimming: at 14 he holds the provincial record of 50 and 100 meters backstroke and is the youngest of the participants.

1937
At the age of 16, on a 400 meters race, at the Arena di Milano he beats the American Robinson (then world record holder of 800 meters), with a time of 48″8, then world record for his category and that will also remain for 75 years the best Italian performance of a sixteen year old athlete. Eight days later he was called to join the Italian Athletics National Team, at just 16 years and 6 months the youngest athlete ever to wear the Italian blue jersey. In Paris, in the France-Italy meeting, he ranks second on the 400 meters behind Lanzi, guaranteeing victory for Italy. He will remain in the national team until 1953.

1939
In Milan he ranks third in the Italy-Germany meeting with a time of 47″8, Italian junior record for more than 30 years and European record until 1950. At 18 in Turin he becomes Absolute Italian Champion in the 400 meters with a time of 48”3. He wins the title of World University Champion in Wien running the 400m distance in 47 ”8, European Junior Record.

1941
He is the Italian Champion in the 400m hurdles with a time of 53″3.

1942
During the Second World War he is enlisted on the North African front where he is captured and remains a British prisoner for 4 years in Egypt until the end of 1946, effectively interrupting his competitive activity for 5 years.

1947
He resumes his competitive activity by running for the prestigious Gallaratese Gymnastics Society of which he will be captain from 1947 to 1952. For six years the “Gallaratese” will win the Absolute Club Championships. He is again selected to be part of the National Team.

In this period Ottavio opens a knitwear laboratory in Trieste with his friend Giorgio Oberweger, the then coach of the national team. In a small factory, four machines in all, he will produce wool training suits, the “Venjulia”. The tracksuits will be adopted as the official uniform by the Italian National Team of athletics, basketball and football. In Florence on 400 meters hurdles he is again Italian Champion. The Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper headlines: “In the greyness of the athletic championships only one light: Missoni (53”6 in the 400 m hurdles)”.

1948
In Florence in the meeting between Italy and Switzerland he wins the 400 m hurdles in 53″1, his personal record. He takes part in the London Olympic Games with the Italian Athletics National Team. Ottavio wins his heat in the 4oo meters hurdles thus conquering a place in the final where he will finish 6th. Rosita Jelmini graduates in modern languages ​​and goes to London to perfect her knowledge of the English language. With her fellow students she is present at Wembley Stadium the day in which Ottavio classifies for the final. They meet in those days in London thanks to Franco Testa, President of Gallaratese, whose daughter is a friend of Rosita. In Genoa he confirms himself as the Italian champion on the 400 m hurdles with a time of 54”0.

1950
Ottavio is 4th at the European Athletics Championships in Brussels on the 400 meters hurdles in 53”6.

1953
Ottavio and Rosita get married and settle in Gallarate. In the basement of the house they set up a small knitwear workshop, continuing together the activity started by Ottavio in Trieste. He competes for the last time in the national team in 1953 at the age of 32: Twenty-seven times “blue jersey” with eight individual victories and seven in the 4 x 400 relay. 17 years with the blue jersey, perhaps a record in terms of racing specialties. He competed for the first time with the Italian national team in 1937 at the age of 16, a record in Athletics.

Since 1971 he has continued to compete in the Masters category, collecting Italian and international successes in the high jump, shot put and javelin. He takes part in the Italian Masters swimming championships and plays tennis regularly. In 2011 in the over 90 category he becomes national champion in shot put and javelin throwing.

Gianni Brera wrote about him in an article in “La Repubblica” on May 18 th , 1989: “Ottavio Missoni appeared in the sky of our athletics as a radiant comet with a very long tail. At the age of 16, he surprisingly vanquished Americans and indigenous people on the 400 meters at the Arena, the most antique among modern stadiums. He was a little brother of Apollo who mysteriously escaped from Jupiter´s lavish harem. He ran with the harmonious ease of Mercury, God of merchants and thieves. The ephebe behind which the Lombards ran in admiration that distant afternoon at
the Arena in Milan brought his own ectoplasm to the 1948 Olympics. He had lost two of them due to the war, which kept him gasping for years under an African tent. His veteran drama was atrocious: however, he miraculously succeeded in doubling himself, to witness his own ectoplasm extending steps of effective and not frivolous vigor: following them he returned alive and athlete whilst fate seemed to have humiliated him forever”.

Since the 1970s he has always continued to train, participating as a master in various specialties for which he will qualify several times as category champion for 40 years.

This video is a crop from ‘Un Mito in Pista’ video, realized for Ottavio Missoni’s 90th Birthday Exhibition in 2010.

OTTAVIO MISSONI MITO IN PISTA OTTOBRE 2010

Video Credits: Franco Spernicelli; #ArchivioMissoni

If you want to know more about the Company and the Missoni family and legacy, you can check https://www.archiviomissoni.org/