SOLE COLLECTOR: Sneakers

words_Nick DePaula

As the Preliminary Round Games came to a close earlier this morning, only eight of the twelve teams competing in the Beijing Olympic Games will be advancing to the Medal Rounds, with the United States and Lithuania taking the top spots from Groups A & B.

Let’s take a look back at some of the most memorable kicks worn during the decisive round of preliminary games, as we bid farewell to Iran, Angola, Russia and Germany.

Lithuania’s Roberta Javkota (above) and Sarunas Jasikevicius took it back a few years, respectively, rocking Nike Huarache 2K4 ID’s and adidas Gil-Zero Mids. Unfortunately for “Saras,” he was still relying on his Indiana Pacers PE stock from the 06-07 NBA season, and probably should’ve hit up his adi rep for a more current colorway.

Manu Ginobili leads Argentina into the Medal Rounds in the Nike Zoom Touch.

Taking notes from Jasikevicius and turning to a past season’s model, Russia’s AK47 ditched his Hyperdunks for his Utah Jazz colored Nike Shox Ups as he boxes out Argentina’s Andres Nocioni, wearing the adidas Pilranhna III.

Iran’s Iman Zandi breaks out a surprise pair of all white Nike 2 Strongs. Random as hell.

Opting to not wear the Jordan Olympia, CP goes with a subtle and clean white and navy Jordan XX3 instead. They also feature personalized stitching along the ankle collar.

Dwight Howard takes a spill in his new adidas TS Commander, the big-man TS offering from The Three Stripes this fall. +1 for the foreground camera guy in white/black/purple/green AF25’s.

Jason Kidd (Zoom Brave II), LeBron James (Zoom LeBron Soldier II), Carmelo Anthony (Jordan Olympia Melo M4), Kobe Byrant (Hyperdunk) and Dwyane Wade (Converse Team Wade) share a laugh on the bench during a thrashing of Germany to close out their prelim games.

Dwyane Wade drives past German point guard Pascal Roller, who is somehow playing a high-intensity sport in the Jordan Classic 87. Germany lost by 49. Go figure.

China celebrates like hell after defeating lowly Germany by only four points. While most of the team wore deep red/yellow Hyperdunks, all the imaginary points in the WORLD go to Wang Zhizhi for breaking out a ten-year-old original pair of white/varsity red Jordan XIII’s, winning him the equally imaginary contest for Sneaker Of The Games. And you probably thought he had no swag.

Wang in style. (Pause.)

Yao Ming was the lone Reebok rep on the Chinese National Team, sticking to the Omni Pump Hexride for the duration of the games. Take a close look at his pair, and you’ll notice there is a taller height and no longer an ankle area cut-away, not to mention no forefoot graphics and more subdued imagery. Yao’s pair also incorporates a more traditional eyelet lacing method in the midfoot instead of the two hidden ghilley laceloops featured on the release version.

Release Version:

Here’s how the Preliminary Round stacked up, with the top four teams from each group advancing to Wednesday’s Quarter Finals.