This was published 7 years ago
Do Nike's Zoom Vaporfly Elite running shoes give athletes an unfair advantage?
By Jeré Longman
Earlier this week, Nike unveiled a new shoe, a customised version of the one worn by the marathon winners in Rio and other recent high-profile races, as part of the company's bold - some say gimmicky - attempt to break 2 hours in the marathon in early May.
Rival sportswear giants Adidas, whose shoes have been worn by the last four men to set the world marathon record, also recently unveiled a shoe for its own, less publicised attempt to lower the current record from 2 hours 2 minutes 57 seconds to 1:59:59 or faster.
Leading from the front: The shoes cushioned the feet of all three medallists in the men's marathon at the Rio Olympics last summer.Credit: AP
All shoes are considered to enhance performance. Otherwise, everyone would run barefoot. But at what point is the line of inequitable advantage crossed? No one seems to know precisely.
"It's quite a fun ethical sports technology area that we're heading into," said Ross Tucker, an exercise physiologist from South Africa who writes the Science of Sport, a blog that is widely followed in running circles.
The shoe to be used in its effort to crack the two-hour mark in marathoning, is called the Zoom Vaporfly Elite
When tennis rackets went from wood to metal, he said, "I bet they were having the same discussion."
The Nike shoe used by medallists in the Olympics, which will retail in June for $US250 ($332), is called the Zoom Vaporfly. The shoe to be used for the Breaking2 project, as Nike calls its effort to crack the two-hour mark in marathoning, is a customised version called the Zoom Vaporfly Elite, which the company refers to as a "concept car" model.
Three East African marathon runners sponsored by Nike, including the 2016 Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya, will attempt to break 2 hours on a Formula One racetrack outside Monza, Italy. And Nike has said the attempt will not meet all of the requirements necessary for a certifiable record.
Some critics have accused Nike of staging a publicity stunt, or a marketing campaign, instead of a credible sporting event.
Controversy: Some critics have accused Nike of staging a publicity stunt, or a marketing campaign, instead of a credible sporting event.
The runners will wear shoes that have been individually tuned, as if they were violins. The question is whether the shoe model used in the Olympics, and in big-city marathons, along with the new version, conforms to the footwear standards of the IAAF, which are imprecise.
The shoes weigh about 184 grams (and feature a thick but lightweight midsole that is said to return 13 percent more energy than more conventional foam midsoles. Kipchoge said he likes the cushioning and reduced pain in his legs in recovering from long runs.
Embedded in the length of the midsole is a thin, stiff carbon-fibre plate that is scooped like a spoon. Imagined another way, it is somewhat curved like a blade. The plate is designed to reduce the amount of oxygen needed to run at a fast pace. It stores and releases energy with each stride and is meant to act as a kind of slingshot, or catapult, to propel runners forward.
Nike says that the carbon-fibre plate saves 4 percent of the energy needed to run at a given speed when compared with another of its popular racing shoes.
If accurate, said Tucker, the South African sports scientist, that is "the equivalent of running downhill at a fairly steep gradient" of 1 to 1.5 percent.
"That's a massive difference," he added.
The IAAF's Rule 143 says that shoes "must not be constructed so as to give an athlete any unfair additional assistance, including by the incorporation of any technology which will give the wearer any unfair advantage."
What constitutes an unfair advantage? It is not explained.
The rule does say that "all types of competition shoes must be approved by the IAAF." But Nike said that it was unaware of any formal approval process and that shoe companies do not routinely submit their shoes for inspection.
Nike officials said they were working closely with the IAAF on course design and drug testing for the Breaking2 project and would be "sharing" the shoes with the governing body. They also noted that carbon-fibre soles have been used before in the running shoe industry
The New York Times