Puma has signed 22-year-old American track-and-field athlete Abby Steiner.
Her victory in the 200-meter final of the US Outdoor Championships in 21.77 seconds makes her the second-fastest woman in the world in that distance this year. She will compete at this summer’s World Athletic Championships in Eugene, Ore.
Steiner holds both the women’s indoor 200 meters American record, as well as the NCAA record (outdoors) and was named the nation’s best high school female athlete in 2018. She holds a personal best of 10.9 seconds for 100 meters and 21.77 seconds for 200 meters. Earlier this year, Steiner was named the National Women’s Track Athlete of the Year and the 2022 Honda Sport Award winner for Track & Field.
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Just after setting a collegiate record at the NCAA championships in June this year, Steiner won her first national title in the women’s 200 meters in Eugene, with a time of 21.77 seconds.
“Abby Steiner is one of the most exciting upcoming stars in track and field,” Pascal Rolling, head of running sports marketing at Puma, said in a statement. “We believe that she will have a brilliant career and we want to be by her side and support her.”
Steiner said in the statement, “Puma’s list of high-performance athletes is impressive and being one of them just feels amazing. I am very happy to be part of the Puma family now and I can’t wait to take off.”
This news comes the same day the global sports brand signed five-time Olympic champion and fastest woman alive Elaine Thompson-Herah. The 30-year-old Jamaican is the first woman in history to win the “sprint double” at consecutive Olympics, capturing gold in both the 100-meter and 200-meter events at the 2016 Rio Olympics and again at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Apart from her historic Olympic achievements, Thompson-Herah became the fastest woman alive when she ran 10.54 seconds at the Prefontaine Classic in 2021.
Amid the global running boom, Puma has been making a greater effort to compete in the category. Last year, the German athletic powerhouse revealed several new proprietary running technologies, including its most notable advancement: Nitro foam.
But its push to become a bigger player in run doesn’t solely rely on new shoes. Puma is also focused on addressing the needs of all runners, with an emphasis on women. In addition to creating product specific to women, Puma has signed several other leading women’s distance athletes, including Molly Seidel, Gesa Krause, Aisha Praught-Leer, Fiona O’Keefe and Taylor Werner.
