During the Buriram Marathon, founder Watee Wichiennit changed into sandals after his running shoes hurt his feet and still reached the finish. In 2019, that experience became the starting question for VING: could an open-foot sandal be built for real running?
With prototypes ready but little production capital, VING used a Virtual Run in late 2020 to fund its first manufacturing run. Participants earned sandals as part of the event and became the first runners to put the idea to the test.
By 2021, VING's runner-funded beginning was being shared with Thailand's SME community. Founder Watee Wichiennit joined Trends Hunter 2021 to explain how support from runners helped turn the product idea into a business.
VING entered a department store for the first time at Central Rama IX. The move gave more people a place to see and try running sandals beyond the race community.
By 2023, a National Innovation Agency founder profile reported VING at more than 90 outlets nationwide. What began with a small group of runners had become easier to find and try across Thailand.
NIRUN brought VING's open-foot approach into a new performance category, pairing a carbon plate with tuned foam. The design won the Sandals category at the 2024 Global Footwear Awards.
Banabas Kiplimo won the 2025 Khon Kaen International Marathon wearing NIRUN. Later that year, VING received Thailand's National Innovation Award in the economic category—recognition for a product developed from its running-sandal idea.
VING received the Khon Kaen Chamber of Commerce's Top Choice Product Award in February 2026. The recognition brought the story back to its home ground as the team continued developing performance and recovery sandals for everyday movement.
From Thai roads to the training ground in Iten. See the places, people and products behind VING.
VING is a Thai-born running brand creating lightweight, open-foot performance footwear.
Because freedom, weight and performance do not have to be separated. We engineer sandals for the demands of real running.
VING was founded in Khon Kaen, Thailand, where heat and distance shaped the first product decisions.
It describes both our origin and our standard: products conceived in Thailand and validated over meaningful distance.
It is the product development practice behind our materials, geometry, athlete testing and measurable performance claims.
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