How Diadora Makes Modern Sport Footwear With Decades of Italian Heritage

It was a windy spring day when nearly 89 runners—all clad in baby blue singlets and split shorts—huddled in a garage at the world famous Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli race track in Italy’s so-called “Motor Valley." The space, usually filled with MotoGP bikes, tires, and the smell of fuel, had been temporarily repurposed into a warm-up area for Race the Gara, a 5k event hosted by Italian footwear brand Diadora in partnership with Ducati.

I was among those runners—firmly behind the pack—there to test the Gara Carbon 3, Diadora’s new carbon-plated running shoe.

For many, the brand’s name will ring a bell, conjuring memories of soccer cleats and running shoes from decades past—Diadora had a strong foothold in European and American sport through the ‘70s, ’80s, and ’90s. Even if their annual revenue was never on par with that of Nike or Adidas, the brand held a certain cultural cachet. Diadora's shoes were known for quality Italian-made craftsmanship and technical innovation—and adorning the feet of pro athletes like F1 driver Ayrton Senna and tennis champion Bjorn Borg.

Despite the renown, Diadora lost ground as a global sport leader throughout the early 2000s and 2010s. Today, the company is in the midst of an effort to regain standing, assisted by Sport Marketing Director and Sport Category Leader Gelindo Bordin, a Diadora athlete since 16 years old and the only man to win both the Boston Marathon and Olympic gold in the event, which he pulled off at the 1988 Seoul Games.

With such experience at the helm, Diadora has launched a deliberate redevelopment project that leans into the brand's heritage roots while simultaneously pushing deeper into performance across running, tennis, and soccer. With a particular interest in supporting young, burgeoning athletes, just as it had back in its heyday.

A Legacy Brand Rebuilding

Diadora was founded in 1948, in Caerano di San Marco, an hour towards the Alps from Venice, as a mountain boot manufacturer, originally producing handmade hiking footwear before expanding into a range of speciality sports.

After the aforementioned troubles attributed to globalization, ill advised category expansion, and many others, in 2009, Enrico Moretti Polegato and his father Mario, founder of Italian lifestyle shoe brand Geox, acquired Diadora. The pair were drawn to the company by its long history, and the potential for it to become a global leader once again.

“Diadora is a brand that has always been focused on technology, on improving the performance of the athletes, on being at the service of the athletes with their products,” the younger Polegato tells me. “It was a unique blend of high-end technology and Italian style. This was the key for a brand to enter a very competitive market like the sports market.”

Gearing up for Race the Gara | Photo by Hannah Singleton

This time around, Polegato would hone in on fewer, key sports that he felt the brand had real expertise in: running, tennis, and soccer. Another arm of Polegato’s approach is to lean into Diadora's heritage roots—that Italian style—by reviving archival silhouettes and maintaining Made in Italy production on select models.

“Every Italian lives in heritage, lives in beauty. We leave home and are surrounded by this history, by the obsession for beauty, for detail. So that thing comes automatically to us,” he says in characteristic fashion. “The attention to the detail, the material, the single stitching is part of us. We do it even without realizing it."

Inside the Modern Diadora HQ & Factory

Attention to detail and craft remains front and center at Diadora. When I visited the headquarters in Caerano San Marco, I saw the production line where the team manufactures their Made in Italy models, like the Atomo Star, a max-cushion shoe for daily running. Workers sanded rubber by hand, glued soles, and shaped the fabric uppers, all using techniques and machinery that the brand originally used in the '90s. Claudio Bora, Diadora's CEO, whose first job was on a production line just like this, even hopped in to demonstrate the process himself.

Next door to the factory, in the research and development lab, the innovation team puts running shoes through the paces using machines designed to simulate the thousands of strides that add up to a marathon. They can also test athletes' gait patterns on treadmills while collecting data about shoe performance and wear patterns.

Maintaining on-site manufacturing and a testing lab allows Diadora to experiment and tinker right in the foothills of the Dolomites. If an athlete heads out on a run and notices their heel slipping, or wants more cushion under the forefoot, it's easy to tweak the design. “You could adjust the stack height and you do it all in real time,” says Bryan Poerner, Diadora’s US CEO, who previously worked for Puma. “The actual process of creating a shoe actually happens in-house.” Even if a technical running shoe like the Gara Carbon 3 isn’t ultimately produced in Italy, it’s conceived and developed at HQ.

While pushing the edge of performance, Diadora isn't ignoring its extensive line of heritage models that nod to styles that were popular in the '90s and 2000s. Some, like the B.Elite, once the shoe of choice on the tennis circuit, are made in-house. Originally designed for Borg in 1978, today it's made as a lifestyle shoe. The Mythos 280 is another homage style, designed in collaboration with Bordin as a nod to the early 2000s running shoe he wore at his competitive peak.

How Diadora Is Finding Its Way Back to Sport—and Community

Diadora is as focused on creating great shoes as it is passionate about supporting athletes along the way, even those who aren't involved in the development process. The Race the Gara event that I attended was one example of community-driven ethos, but the brand initiatives extend beyond Europe, too. Since 2016, the brand has been working to break into the US market, mainly by prioritizing connection with athletes and in-store representation.

“We are thinking about and focusing on the next generation of runners,” says Poerner. One way is by identifying and sponsoring some of the best collegiate athletes through NIL (name, image, and likeness) programs that offer pay, gear, and mentorship, with the goal of bringing them to the next Olympic cycles. Their first NIL athlete was Marco Langon, who placed second in the 5000 meter at the 2026 NCAA Indoor Championships, and now Diadora has Oregon-based up-and-comer Simeon Birnbaum on its roster, too.

Diadora is tapping into the greater running community, too. Last year, the brand hosted a “High Mileage” pop-up in Flagstaff, Arizona, which in the summer months becomes a hub for both up-and-coming young athletes and Olympians who want to reap the performance benefits of training at its 7000-foot altitude. The free, month-long event was open to the public and included community long runs, a speaker series, and recovery sessions. After their outdoor runs, athletes could pop by to use Wahoo treadmills or refuel with snacks and coffee.

Poerner sees on-the-ground connection as the key to Diadora’s growth in the US these days. “We're getting to a point where it's just building on itself,” he says. “It's moving really fast. It's really fun to be a part of.”

The grassroots approach is paying off in the lifestyle space, too. Poerner, who originally worked in music, finds joy in having friends send him pictures of musicians on stage sporting Diadora footwear. In the next year and a half, we may see some out-of-the-box design partnerships, too.

The strategy may be slower than many brands who pour marketing budgets into viral social media ads and influencer marketing—see Nike's massive ACG push, and On's recent efforts to remake its image—but Diadora is more concerned with showing up in the right places, with the right people. Back in the '80s, Diadora’s slogan was “Passion of Sport.” And although the brand has changed a lot since then, that same idea is still what drives it forward today.