The Olympics are approaching, soon we will see the best athletes go higher fastest stronger. But what if its not the athlete going faster? The marathon world has us asking that very question. What if runners aren’t running faster but technology is responsible for all their new speed. Running is a simple sport; a person and a pair of shoes. We don’t think of running shoes as technology the way we may look at other sports equipment. Other sports like cycling and golf have always been racing to find the best materials and engineer better aerodynamics. Hockey sticks changed from wood to composites and the curve is regulated. New dimples make soccer balls move faster and further. Its hard to find a sport where the equipment has not been engineered to help athletes go higher, faster, stronger. Now the running world is asking how much is the shoes?Its Nike that has us asking. In 2016 Nike brought the vaporfly series to competitions.

Since then Nike athletes have dominated the marathon.

• At the 2016 Olympics, all 3 medals in the mens division wore vaporflys
• Kipochoge’s official record of 2:01:39 was done in vaporflys. This performance knocked 78 seconds off the previous record and marked the second largest gain in over 50 years
• Kipochoge’s unofficial sub 2 marathon was done in a prototype of the vaporfly family
• Mariko Yugeta from Japan became the first women over 60 to go sub 3 in a marathon wearing vaporflys
• 5 of the fastest marathon times ever were done in vaporflys
• At the 2019 Chicago marathon all of top 10 males wore vaporfly and the top female, Kosgei, set a new world record in the shoes cutting 81 seconds off the previous record which had held since 2003
• In 2019 vaporfly runners claimed 31 of 36 podiums at the big 6 marathons for men and women
It would be fair to say that the Nike Vaporfly have been a part of nearly every major running milestone since their debut.

Independent studies estimate the vaporfly advantage at around 4%. Nike CEO John Donahoe denies the shoes offer an unfair mechanical advantage, he states “It’s simply using the same materials that go into a shoe and putting them together in an innovative way that allows the athlete to do their very best in a safe way.” Nike engineers claim there is innovation but not through new technology but by each element as part of a system. The newest version of the shoes hit the limited market last week, Nike Alphafly Next%.

The not new technology in these shoes is 3 fold: cushion foam, carbon plate and air pockets. The cushion in these shoes is a new material previously used in airplane insulation. The Nike ZoomX foam makes running on concrete feel gentle. The carbon plate adds stiffness through the foam allowing energy to be returned to the runner. This energy is not created by the shoes, it is the runner’s energy. The Nike Zoom Air pods are in the forefoot for further cushioning and energy return. I remember air pocket in my reeboks back in high school so the concept is not new. The right balance of cushion in running shoes has been a debated since the inception of shoes, it certainly is not new. The carbon plate might be the newest technology but at over 15 years since Addidas introduced it, new is a stretch as best.

The rules of running shoes were nearly non-existant before these shoes dominated the scene. There was a blanket statement that running shoes cannot offer an unfair advantage. What does that even mean? Some might argue that a documented 4% boost is an unfair advantage. Others counter that calling the system based design unfair is penalizing Nike for making the best shoes with pre-existing technology all previously allowed in competition. Some argue that Nike has been innovating through the last 3 years and only Nike sponsored athletes have had access to the best shoes. Is limited access to the shoes an unfair advantage?

New rules were released last week to answer the questions. Technology wise there are two points of note; cushion thickness cannot be more than 40 mm and only one carbon plate can be present. Access wise the rule is that shoes must be on the market for 4 months prior to competition. These rules will allow the Nike Alphafly Next% into the Olympics. The shoes that broke that unofficial sub 2 hr marathon were a prototype that speculators say would not meet the new rules.

Other shoe brands will be rushing to release their carbon plated competitors by April 30th to make it into the Olympics. Hoka has had their CarbonX for some time and it helped to claim the new 50 miler record. Saucony and Brooks will likely follow suit. Other shoe companies might be hard pressed to make the deadline. Which will beg the question will non-Nike sponsored athletes choose to wear the competition’s shoes.

The swimming world has the most recent Olympic example of similarity. 98% of the swimming field in the 2008 Olympics wore Speedo’s LZR suit or commonly known as the shark skin suit. Remember Bejing? All the swimmers had full body suits and even athletes sponsored by Speedo competitors chose to wear the Speedo suits. 25 world records fell that year. Since then additional limits were imposed, full body is no longer allowed and thickness restrictions were imposed. The shark skin is still around but not covering a swimmer like at Bejing. Those records have asterisks to denote the suit advantage.

For now the running world is posed to break new ground underneath the Nike shoes. Time will tell if all the new ground will stand firm. Running might be discussed as the BV and AV times; before vaporfly and after vaporfly. The records might one day be denoted with an asterisks.

Once upon a time no one thought a 4 min mile was possible. Then Roger Bannister did it. He did it on a cinder track. Now runners break 4 min in college and sometime high school. New track surface adds a 1.5-2% advantage. Therefore technology has a role in all track events. In 1956 Jesse Owens ran 100 m in 10.2s and in 2013 Usain Bolt did it in 9.77s. That means that Bolt crossed the line and Owens was 14 ft behind. When we account for the cinder track, cleats and starting blocks Owens might actually be the fastest man in history. Analysis estimate the track surface alone would make those 14 ft behind only a single stride. Could starting blocks and cleats be the difference of that single stride?

The question of the moment is – how to balance respect for the athletic accomplishments of the past with all available to the athletes of today? Are technological innovations fair or are they the newest form of doping? Is there any sport left that doesn’t owe part of the new accomplishments to technology?

Larissa’s lazy references
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs40279-017-0811-2.pdf
nike vaporfly equates to about 4% faster marathon
https://www.ted.com/talks/david_epstein_are_athletes_really_getting_faster_better_stronger?language=en#t-154583
some other stats re 100 m calculations
https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1090178/nike-vaporfly-chief-executive
Nike CEO quote