LEWISTON, Maine — Shoemakers in Lewiston will see their handiwork on an international stage when the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony takes place on July 26.
For a fourth Olympic cycle, the staff at Rancourt & Co. have handmade the shoes that Team USA will wear when they walk into the stadium to kick off the games.
Polo Ralph Lauren, the official sponsor of Team USA, contracted Rancourt's team for the 2016 Rio Olympics to make a red, white, and blue boat shoe and again for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics to create a white canvas sneaker. In 2022, the shoemakers faced a new challenge: a snow boot for the Beijing Olympics. This time around, it's a white suede buck shoe for Paris 2024.
So what keeps Polo coming back to Rancourt & Co. to make Team USA's shoes?
"Because we do a good job. We do the best job there is," Linda Dulac, who has worked for the company since 1996, said. "You have to [take pride in your work] if you want good shoes."
Owner, Mike Rancourt, said Polo was seeking out a company that does not mass produce its goods. He said they still make shoes the way his father made them in the 1960s.
"We stay with tradition from the moment we choose a piece of leather to when we put it in a box, we stay with tradition," Rancourt emphasized. "Ralph Lauren knows that and understands that. That's why it's been a good partnership with them because they enjoy the fact that we embrace this style and this look and this heritage that they're part of as well. "
The project is no easy lift, Rancourt said. It involves using only U.S.-sourced materials and meeting the exact specifications Polo Ralph Lauren demands: the shoemakers had to modify the placement of this year's "Team USA" patch on the tongue of the shoe by five millimeters.
"It is very demanding and it really sharpens our skills as a company," Rancourt said. "We have to be really on our toes for this program."
"When you make something for the Olympics, people are talking about it and they're recognizing our community and the state of Maine for excellence, you know, for the things that we do super well," he said. "It never gets old."
He said one of the biggest challenges with this year's white suede shoes was keeping the material clean during assembly. The texture and color combine for a very sensitive surface.
"Keeping that clean is like a chore you can't imagine," he explained. "We spend more time walking through the factory at different locations and taking brushes and little sandpaper and just cleaning everything. So it didn't smudge or didn't take a print of the dirt. That has definitely...that was definitely the biggest challenge of this group."
But Team USA is not the only high-profile client for which this Lewiston-based company makes shoes.
"We've made shoes for a lot of different people over the years, some presidents, some popes. It's one shoe or one, you know, one pair. We just recently made a pair for a king, but they're not going to talk about it," Rancourt said. "When you make something for the Olympics, people are talking about it and they're recognizing our community and the state of Maine for excellence, for the things that we do super well."
Rancourt & Co. is one of a handful of U.S. businesses Polo selected to make Team USA's uniform. The international company found businesses in California, Oregon, New York City, and others to work with. Of the six companies listed on Polo's website, two of them are from Maine. The other is Rogue Industries in Standish, which is making Team USA's belts.
"I love it. It's fantastic. There's two companies in there that are both feeling the same way, you know, that we're actually producing products for a world stage, right?" Rancourt enthused. "I mean, how often do you get to make Olympic shoes, right? Okay, This is our fourth go-around, but it's never guaranteed, right? Polo has to ask us if we want to do it, and I'm not about to refuse it," he said.
You can watch the opening ceremony on NEWS CENTER Maine on July 26.