AUCKLAND, New Zealand, June 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- We pay heartfelt tribute to our founder, Les Mills Snr, who passed away peacefully today, aged 91.
A Kiwi icon, Les blazed a trail in sport, business, politics and life. Together with his wife Colleen, he created a fitness dynasty, first through the Les Mills New Zealand (LMNZ) chain of gyms and then Les Mills International, the group training powerhouse started by their son Phillip and his partner Jackie, now supported by their children Diana and Les Jnr.
Born in Auckland in 1934, Les had a tough start in life, losing his father at age 11, but he found solace in his passion for fitness and physical culture, inspired by the Charles Atlas strength training program. He grew into a fearsome athlete who represented New Zealand at four Olympic Games, competing in the discus and shot put. He won Commonwealth Games Gold, three Silver medals and one Bronze, later becoming an elite international coach and sports administrator.
Aged 19, Les married his wife Colleen – herself a world-class track and field athlete – and the pair embarked on several business ventures together before uniting their passion for sport and commerce to launch the first Les Mills gym in Auckland in 1968. After a few false starts, the gym business eventually took off and became the successful LMNZ chain of gyms that remain a cornerstone of Kiwi culture.
While Phillip, Jackie and Colleen were busy building Les Mills International and taking group workouts global with the explosion of BODYPUMP™, Les entered politics with characteristic determination to drive change for his constituents. He served three terms as Mayor of Auckland City in the 1990s, leading sweeping reforms to strengthen communities and improve infrastructure, as well as regenerating the heart of the city and its waterfront with bold development projects.
After leaving politics, Les continued to coach athletes, help grow the family businesses and support several charity initiatives. In 2002, he was recognized in the Queen's Birthday and Golden Jubilee Honors, being made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to local government and sport. This complemented the earlier 1973 Queen's Birthday Honors appointment as a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to sport. In 2022, together with Phillip and Jackie Mills, he was inducted into the New Zealand Business Hall of Fame.
Phillip Mills, Managing Director of Les Mills International, said of his father: "He achieved a huge amount in his life. And the common thread throughout – whether in fitness, politics or family life – was that he always wanted to help others.
"Dad was immensely strong, driven, and always cared deeply for the less advantaged. He left a lasting impression on everyone he met, and his spirit lives on in gym workouts around the world, continuing to help people fall in love with fitness."
Having lost Colleen in 2005, Les is survived by his children Phillip and Donna, daughter-in-law Jackie, grandchildren Diana, Les Jr, Gabriel and Moana, plus many great-grandchildren.
Leslie Roy Mills MBE, CNZM 1 November 1934 – 29 June 2026
"The purpose of the gym is to help people fall in love with fitness." – Les Mills, 1968
View Les Mills tribute video
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A 'founding father of fitness' - Les Mills Snr 1934 - 2026
- Additional core ALLEX technologies to be released sequentially
- Expanding the Physical AI development ecosystem through high-fidelity Sim-to-Real validation
- Building an open Physical AI development ecosystem for researchers and robotics developers
SEOUL, South Korea, June 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- WIRobotics, a global robotics company (Co-CEOs: YounBaek Lee and Yong-Jae Kim), today announced the launch of its technology disclosure roadmap for building a Physical AI development ecosystem.
WIRobotics plans to gradually release the core technologies developed throughout its humanoid robot program to researchers and developers. As the first technology release, the company has unveiled the simulation model of its humanoid robot, ALLEX, together with the results of its Sim-to-Real (Simulation-to-Real) validation.
Across the global robotics industry, Physical AI—which enables robots to perceive, reason, and act in the physical world—is gaining attention as one of the next-generation core technologies. In particular, development approaches based on simulation environments that accurately reflect the characteristics of real robots are rapidly expanding in the humanoid robotics field.
In response to this trend, WIRobotics plans to go beyond robot development by building an open development ecosystem where external researchers and developers can actively participate. The goal is to provide an environment in which a wide range of algorithms and AI models can be researched and validated through simulation, even before physical robots become commercially available.
The newly released ALLEX simulation model focuses on minimizing the Sim-to-Real Gap between the simulation environment and the physical robot. In particular, the model precisely reproduces the characteristics of the real ALLEX, including its high backdrivability and force transparency. This demonstrates the robot's highly differentiated Real-to-Sim characteristics, where the behavior of the physical robot closely matches that of the ideal simulation model. As a result, researchers and developers can conduct ALLEX-based robot control, learning, and synthetic data generation research without requiring access to physical hardware. The released model is available in MJCF format for MuJoCo, USD format for Isaac Sim, and URDF format for ROS.
This release marks the first step in WIRobotics' Physical AI technology disclosure roadmap. The company plans to continue releasing additional core technologies developed throughout its humanoid robot program, further expanding the Physical AI development ecosystem.
Meanwhile, WIRobotics has also released a technical demonstration video through its official YouTube channel, showcasing the validation of consistency between the real robot and the simulation environment. The video provides a closer look at the technical implementation and the validation process.
Yong-Jae Kim, Co-CEO of WIRobotics, said:
"In humanoid robot development, simulation models are a core infrastructure that serves as the foundation for learning, validation, and synthetic data generation. A simulation environment that effectively reflects the characteristics of the real robot enables developers to validate algorithms more quickly and increases the potential for successful deployment on physical hardware."
He added:
"We plan to make the ALLEX research platform available later this year. By releasing the ALLEX simulation model, we hope more developers will begin ALLEX-based research even before the hardware becomes widely available. We will continue expanding a development ecosystem where research outcomes can ultimately be applied to real robots."
About WIRobotics
Founded in 2021 by former Samsung Electronics robotics engineers, WIRobotics is a robotics company developing wearable robots and humanoid robots.
Through its wearable robot WIM series, WIRobotics received CES Innovation Awards from 2024 through 2026, demonstrating its technological excellence. The company has expanded into global markets, including Europe, Japan, and China, providing a wide range of robotics solutions designed to enhance user mobility.
In 2025, WIRobotics unveiled its humanoid robot platform, ALLEX, and has continued expanding its research in the field of Physical AI. In 2026, the company was selected for the Physical AI Fellowship, a global program led by NVIDIA and Amazon Web Services (AWS), recognizing its technological competitiveness.
WIRobotics also successfully completed a Series B funding round of approximately KRW 95 billion in 2026, accelerating the development of next-generation robotics technologies and its global business expansion.
For more information, please visit the official WIRobotics website and YouTube channel.
YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fsfo_FZDS0
GitHub:
https://github.com/wirobotics-rih/allex_model
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WIRobotics Begins Building a Physical AI Development Ecosystem: The First Technology Release Features the ALLEX Simulation Model
