Team USA Sailing set to wear Buffalo native’s cooling gear at Paris Olympics

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — Cooling equipment brand Oro Sports took inspiration from the original designs of Coolturewhich was created by Buffalo native Van DiBernardo.

“He was a DKNY designer and he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis,” said Van’s sister, Luanne DiBernardo. “So when he went home, he thought he was going home to die. He was so weakened.”

Luanne made it her mission to find her brother something to wear for the warmer temperatures as he dealt with his chronic illness.

“I found him an industrial cooling vest. It was heavy, bulky, wet all his clothes and was very unattractive, but it allowed him to operate in the summer,” Luanne said.

Soon, a collaboration blossomed into what would quickly become Oro Sports.

“I told Van, your designer, to design something better, and he did,” Luanne said.

Since 2019, the brother and sister duo have been perfecting the cooling vest for athletes, expanding their product from the medical field to the world of athletics.

This technology has proven useful to Bob Bateson, a strength and conditioning specialist who has used Oro Sports equipment on clients.

“So we can cool you down before or during exercise, you can have a higher performance and deepen your workout without experiencing the detrimental effects of heat from MS effects,” Bateson said.

The cooling vest gained a lot of traction during the Tokyo Olympics when the USA Sailing team used the vests. Four years later, the team contacted Oro Sports for the Paris Olympic Games.

“When we got the call last month and they said, ‘We need your product. We’re not going to Paris without it,’ it was like, what better validation than that? , DiBernardo said.

The company offers six different cooling items on its website and is working on launching three more.

The brand lives on through Luanne, even if Van is unable to contribute physically.

“Van can still tell you today what the trend will be in 5 to 10 years, and that’s something you can’t buy,” Luanne said.