Do Nike's new shoes give runner an unfair advantage?
By Jere Longman
The shoes came in the colors of a tropical drink, lime and orange and pink, as if the logo ought to be an umbrella instead of a Nike swoosh. If the color scheme suggested frivolity, race results did not. The shoes cushioned the feet of all three medalists in the men’s marathon at the Rio Olympics last summer. Later, in the fall, they were worn by the winners of major marathons in Berlin, Chicago and New York.
The latest shoe designs have produced fast times and impressive results in international races. But they have also spurred yet another debate about the advance of technology and the grey area where innovation meets extremely vague rules about what is considered unfair performance enhancement for the feet.
Where to draw the line of permissible assistance? Many sports have struggled with the answer. Swimming allowed record-setting, full-body suits, then banned them after the 2008 Beijing Olympics because they gave an unfair advantage in buoyancy and speed.
The latest issue is shoes. Track’s governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations, said in an email that it had received a number of inquiries about elite runners wearing new designs made by various companies. Its technical committee will meet within two weeks to “see if we need to change or review approvals.” Bret Schoolmeester, Nike’s senior director of global running footwear, said, “We’re very confident we’re doing things within the rules and above board.”
Recently, Nike unveiled a new shoe, a customized version of the one worn by the marathon winners in Rio de Janeiro and other recent high-profile races, as part of the company’s attempt to break 2 hours in the marathon in early May. 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 publicized attempt to lower the current record from 2 hours 2 minutes 57 seconds to 1:59:59 or faster.
George Hirsch, the chairman of New York Road Runners, which organizes the New York City Marathon and more than 50 other races, said everything from elite races to age-group competitions could be affected by the latest shoe technology. It would be impossible to check the shoes of hundreds or thousands of runners before each race, he said. 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.
The Nike shoe used by medalists in the Olympics, to be used for the Breaking2 project, as Nike calls its effort to crack the two-hour mark in marathoning, is a customized 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.
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 6.5 ounces and feature a thick but lightweight midsole that is said to return 13 per cent more energy than more conventional foam midsoles.
Embedded in the length of the midsole is a thin, stiff carbon-fiber 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-fiber plate saves 4 per cent 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.” The IAAF finds itself inundated on many fronts, like corruption, doping and the permissible levels of testosterone in female athletes.
And it has long appeared ill equipped to define what should be allowed on the legs and feet of runners. The IAAF’s Rule 143 now 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.
Nike officials said they were working closely with the IAAF on course design and drug test ing for the Breaking2 project and would be “sharing” the shoes with the governing body. They also noted that carbon-fiber soles have been used before in the running shoe industry. Tucker, an exercise physiologist at the School of Medicine of the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa, said he thought the Nike shoe “probably should be illegal” because it purports to act as a spring. If it were barred, he said, it should be done in conjunction with a rewriting of the IAAF’s vague rules.
The shoes came in the colors of a tropical drink, lime and orange and pink, as if the logo ought to be an umbrella instead of a Nike swoosh. If the color scheme suggested frivolity, race results did not. The shoes cushioned the feet of all three medalists in the men’s marathon at the Rio Olympics last summer. Later, in the fall, they were worn by the winners of major marathons in Berlin, Chicago and New York.
The latest shoe designs have produced fast times and impressive results in international races. But they have also spurred yet another debate about the advance of technology and the grey area where innovation meets extremely vague rules about what is considered unfair performance enhancement for the feet.
Where to draw the line of permissible assistance? Many sports have struggled with the answer. Swimming allowed record-setting, full-body suits, then banned them after the 2008 Beijing Olympics because they gave an unfair advantage in buoyancy and speed.
The latest issue is shoes. Track’s governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations, said in an email that it had received a number of inquiries about elite runners wearing new designs made by various companies. Its technical committee will meet within two weeks to “see if we need to change or review approvals.” Bret Schoolmeester, Nike’s senior director of global running footwear, said, “We’re very confident we’re doing things within the rules and above board.”
Recently, Nike unveiled a new shoe, a customized version of the one worn by the marathon winners in Rio de Janeiro and other recent high-profile races, as part of the company’s attempt to break 2 hours in the marathon in early May. 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 publicized attempt to lower the current record from 2 hours 2 minutes 57 seconds to 1:59:59 or faster.
George Hirsch, the chairman of New York Road Runners, which organizes the New York City Marathon and more than 50 other races, said everything from elite races to age-group competitions could be affected by the latest shoe technology. It would be impossible to check the shoes of hundreds or thousands of runners before each race, he said. 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.
The Nike shoe used by medalists in the Olympics, to be used for the Breaking2 project, as Nike calls its effort to crack the two-hour mark in marathoning, is a customized 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.
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 6.5 ounces and feature a thick but lightweight midsole that is said to return 13 per cent more energy than more conventional foam midsoles.
Embedded in the length of the midsole is a thin, stiff carbon-fiber 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-fiber plate saves 4 per cent 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.” The IAAF finds itself inundated on many fronts, like corruption, doping and the permissible levels of testosterone in female athletes.
And it has long appeared ill equipped to define what should be allowed on the legs and feet of runners. The IAAF’s Rule 143 now 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.
Nike officials said they were working closely with the IAAF on course design and drug test ing for the Breaking2 project and would be “sharing” the shoes with the governing body. They also noted that carbon-fiber soles have been used before in the running shoe industry. Tucker, an exercise physiologist at the School of Medicine of the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa, said he thought the Nike shoe “probably should be illegal” because it purports to act as a spring. If it were barred, he said, it should be done in conjunction with a rewriting of the IAAF’s vague rules.
