Updated: March 8, 9:14 a.m.

An Oregon company will soon be making it easier for female Muslim athletes who wear hijab to focus on the game instead of their head covering.

On Tuesday, Nike introduced a high performance athletic hijab, called the "Pro Hijab." It will be available next year.

"The Nike Pro Hijab has been a year in the making," the company wrote in a press release, "but its impetus can be traced much further back to Nike's founding mission, to serve athletes, with the signature addendum: If you have a body, you're an athlete."

"Pro Hijab" isn't the first athletic hijab on the market. But it does represent the first option available from Nike, one of the top sports apparel brands in the world.

According to Nike, the pull-on hijab "is constructed from durable single-layer Nike Pro power mesh" that is breathable, lightweight, stretchy, soft and adapts to different sports. The design will first be available in black, vast grey and obsidian.

Nike isn't only focusing on Muslim women who wear hijab. In February, the company released a commercial featuring five female athletes from the Arab world. Not all of the women in the ad wear headscarves, which lead to some backlash against the spot.

In a press release sent out Tuesday, Nike said "top-flight athletes have illuminated performance problems associated with wearing a traditional hijab during competition."

"For example, Amna Al Haddad a female weightlifter from the United Arab Emirates recounted how the garment's weight, the potential for it to shift during action and its lack of breathability disrupted her focus," Nike continued. "She also detailed her extreme difficulty finding performance hijabs; Amna had only one competition-worthy covering, so she had to hand wash it every night during competitions."

Nike said they hope Nike Pro Hijab will inspire more Muslim women and girls to participate in athletic activities.

-- Lizzy Acker

503-221-8052

lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker