Nike: sport first

What exists today

Ten starter dossiers: Prefontaine, Jordan, Serena Williams, Nadal, Kipchoge, Kobe Bryant, Cristiano Ronaldo, Tiger Woods, Joan Benoit Samuelson and LeBron James. Ten linked events cover Olympic ambition, victory, defeat, comeback and milestones. Five cultural records cover Los Angeles 1984, Failure, Write the Future, Voices and Dream Crazy. Sources and authored interpretations reach the live session. Pre is enabled for local voice review at /demos/nike; audible evaluation remains pending. Complete career histories, all sport categories and live results are not achieved.

lib/digital-dna/sports-library.ts defines reusable athlete, relationship, source, event and turning-point records. Every event connects to athletes and evidence. Outcome and score are separate from authored interpretation. Event detail explicitly says result-only, selected moments or complete play-by-play; missing sets, points, splits or clocks remain gaps. Relationship evidence is historical unless current status has been separately confirmed. An event before an endorsement is not silently claimed as a brand achievement.

Local retrieveSportsEvidence finds athlete aliases and matching events and returns their evidence. This is tested local lookup, not an LLM retrieval tool or network feed. The small inspected source register reaches draft DNA directly. A larger corpus will need a runtime retrieval tool rather than placing all careers in every voice session.

Research lessons already found

The Nike Prefontaine history gives a 1973 first-signing account. Oregon gives 1974: both accounts are retained, without claiming a reconciled date. Oregon also clarifies that the 1972 NCAA track title was 5,000 metres. The Olympic Museum establishes fourth at Munich, but contains an implausible world-championship passage: that passage is excluded. A prestigious publisher does not make every sentence reliable.

Nike's Air Jordan account distinguishes the Air Ship from the later banned-Air-Jordan story. Nike's Nadal tribute and the ITF final report distinguish career totals from totals at a particular match. USTA's Serena report gives the match-point sequence; a 2022 exit is not automatic evidence of permanent retirement. Nike's June 2026 Serena profile discusses a doubles return: verify the actual result before treating an announcement as an outcome. INEOS documents Vienna's time; official ratification is a separate claim, with World Athletics extraction blocked in this pass.

Building the full library

1. Create a reviewed definition of “main athletes”: cultural influence, longevity, signature lines, competitive importance and brand milestones; include women, disabled athletes, global regions and former relationships. Build the roster from dated partnership evidence, not a guessed list of famous people wearing shoes.
2. For each athlete, assemble childhood and entry into sport, junior/college career where relevant, season-by-season chronology, teams/coaches, titles, records, rivals, defeats, comebacks, injury context, cultural influence, relationship timeline and documented controversies. Separate allegation, finding, appeal and resolution. Nike positioning is not an independent verdict on disputes.
3. Join competition/season/event identifiers to official result archives. Store tennis sets and points, basketball possessions, football goals and match incidents, racing laps and splits as sport-specific event detail, with exact score perspective and units. A highlight film does not establish a full point ledger.
4. Author the interpretation: what the athlete did exceptionally, one pressure moment, one painful loss, what changed over time, and a fair counterargument. Never invent a living athlete's private thoughts or use brand loyalty to erase an opponent's achievement.
5. Select live/archive providers by actual competition coverage, historical depth, granularity, correction policy, licensing and cost. Public sports pages are sources, not automatically reusable paid-product data feeds. No provider has been selected, credentials added or subscription purchased. Show a timestamp and source for live answers; if unavailable, give the dated historical answer instead.
6. Gauntlet factual traps: tied names, season versus calendar year, Open Era versus all-time, singles versus doubles, exhibition versus ratified record, scores from opposite perspectives, then versus current records, expired endorsements, unverified allegations and unknown play-by-play. Character tests should demand passionate explanation without turning every loss into inspiration or ignoring grief and controversy.

Coverage map

These lanes are a research queue, not a claim that every athlete in them was sponsored by Nike. Full coverage requires a measured roster and record counts; ten dossiers are a bounded first tranche, not “the ultimate trivia king” delivered.