On the same day the Olympic Games opens this month, Sotheby's will put on sale running shoes made by Nike's co-founder for 1960s Olympian Harry Jerome that could fetch $1 million.
The rare pair of track and field spikes designed by Bill Bowerman for Jerome, a Canadian sprinter who won 100-metre bronze at the 1964 Tokyo Games, features a red arrow that was a prelude to the famous Nike swoosh logo.
Sotheby's New York will put the white lace-up shoes on sale online from Friday, July 23 to Monday, August 2.
The auction house estimates that they could go for between $800,000 and $1.2m.
The sale comes as the market for rare sports shoes, previously seen as niche, soars.
In April, a pair of Nike Air Yeezy 1s worn by rapper Kanye West sold for $1.8m, triple the previous record for sneakers.
The shoes beat the record held by a pair of Nike Air Jordan 1s, which sold for $615,000 in August 2020 at a Christie's auction.
Sotheby's said the shoe by Bowerman, who founded Nike with Phil Knight, "represents an important chapter in the origins of the Nike brand".
The auction house is also selling a pair of Converse Fastbreak sneakers that basketball legend Michael Jordan wore during the 1984 Olympic trials.
They are expected to fetch up to $100,000.
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Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
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Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
Torque: 330Nm (Cooper and Aceman), 494Nm (Countryman)
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The biog
Born: Kuwait in 1986
Family: She is the youngest of seven siblings
Time in the UAE: 10 years
Hobbies: audiobooks and fitness: she works out every day, enjoying kickboxing and basketball