Why advances in running-shoe technology is hurting credibility of record-breaking times

Athletes these days have had to defend their choice of footwear. Not because of the colour but the materials used to make them. Carbon plate, thick soles, cutting-edge foam in these latest shoes, many believe have helped athletes run faster. World Athletics, the governing body for the sport, have woken up and introduced stricter guidelines and simpler rules on thickness of soles come into force from 2024.

Top brands invest heavily in hours of testing in running labs and get contracted athletes to give feedback after wearing prototypes on tracks to produce the ‘fastest shoe’.

The black and green spikes worn by Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan in the women’s 100 metre hurdles were ‘plain Jane’ shoes compared to the eye-catching golden shoes made famous by Johnson and Bolt. Yet modern shoe technology immediately put a question mark over her record breaking run in the semifinals.

Breaks world record (12.12) in the semis ✔️
Storms to world 100m hurdles title in the final ✔️

Tobi Amusan 🇳🇬 is on another planet 🪐#WorldAthleticsChamps pic.twitter.com/3hf37HAvEp

— World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) July 25, 2022

This despite Amusan not wearing the super spikes but using the shoe which suited her best. She had stormed to the gold wearing middle distance shoes. The Adidas Adizero Avanti is one of the popular pairs worn by middle and long distance runners. The choice of footwear worked for Amusan because it helped with cushion from an injured tendon of the knee. She ran wind-aided 12.06 seconds in the final and 12.12 in the semifinals, a new world record.

“I had patella fasciitis at the beginning of the season so that set me back for a while. I spoke to Adidas and requested if I could get spikes with a softer sole,” Amusan told the Guardian. “My abilities are not centred around spikes.”

As per the current regulations, the thickness of the sole of sprint spikes should not be more than 20 millimetres. So Amusan’s middle distance shoes would have had specifications which fell within the rules.

Will skeptics of shoe technology be satisfied with her explanation?

At the World Championships, America’s Sydney McLaughlin had shattered her own world record in the 400 metres hurdles and left everyone in her wake. She has not yet faced questions about shoe technology but after the Tokyo Olympics, where a fast track at the Olympic Stadium aided runners too, the debate had been reignited at the end of the men’s and women’s event.

Sydney McLaughlin, of the United States, celebrates after winning the final of the women’s 400-meter hurdles at the World Athletics Championships. (AP)

The men’s 400 metre hurdles was an all-time classic. Norway’s Karsten Warholm had bettered his world record by .76 of a second and edged out American Rai Benjamin. Amazingly, Benjamin’s silver-medal winning time was half a second inside Warholm’s previous mark of 46.70. National records and continental marks were set by six of the seven finishers in the men’s final at Tokyo.

Warholm trained his guns on what Benjamin was wearing on his feet, a pair of spikes which looked thicker than his but within the rules.

“He had those things in his shoes, which I hate,” Warholm said. “I don’t see why you should put anything beneath a sprinting shoe. I think it takes credibility away from our sport.”

Warholm wore Puma shoes and Benjamin raced in Nikes. A little later Warholm tried to tone down his comments but said he believed credibility of the fast times set by were taking a hit.

“What I said was misunderstood in some way, because I had one comment about it after the race and it just blew up and that wasn’t my plan at all,” said Warholm.

“To be honest I don’t know if that shoe [Nike] is the best shoe. My shoe [Puma] is maybe just as good, but that’s not what it is about, necessarily. I haven’t done the science. When somebody does a great performance now, everybody will question if it’s the shoe. That is the credibility problem.”

Karsten Warholm, of Norway, wins a heat in the mens 400-meter hurdles at the World Athletics Championships. (AP)

Thick shoes with multiple plates have been controversial. Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge, the current two-time marathon winner at the Olympics ran the first-ever sub-two hour marathon (a non-competitive one off event) wearing Nike Alpha Fly (prototype) shoes in Vienna in 2019. It started a debate on the amount of assistance the shoes, said to have more than one plate and thicker than 40mm, gave Kipchoge. Athletes wearing Nike shoes with thick soles have won a majority of marathon races recently raising questions about technological doping.

World Athletics introduced updated regulations that are in force from the start of this year.A major change was introduced in January 2020 when athletes were told they cannot run in prototype shoes. It meant that a shoe had to be available for purchase in the open market for at least four months before it can be worn by an athlete in an official race. This rule made the sport of running more egalitarian. Most top athletes who endorsed shoe giants had an unfair advantage as they had access to latest models before it was made available to the general public or competitors who did not have a contract.

There is a shoe thickness table under the regulations. For track events less than the distance of 800 metres, including the hurdles, the thickness of the sole has to be 20mm. In track events over 800 metres it can be 25mm. When it comes to cross country races, if it is a shoe with spikes the thickness can be 25mm and for shoes without spikes it is capped at 40mm. In road races, like the marathon and for race walking events, it is 40mm, and in mountain races there is no limit to the thickness of the shoe.

Restricting the thickness of shoe soles is one of the steps towards ensuring athletes don’t get an unfair advantage from better cushioning and energy generation off the ground.

A shoe should not also have more than one plate or a blade in the sole, regulations state. This rule was aimed at keeping a check on multiple plates, including those made from carbon fibre, used in shoes to help athletes gain more spring-like energy from the ground.

The greatest sprinter Usain Bolt has called advances in shoe technology unfair. Bolt was referring to superspikes – with a plate and foam bedding- introduced in 2019 by Nike after which other manufacturers brought out their own versions.

“When I was told about it I couldn’t believe that this is what we have gone to, you know what I mean, that we are really adjusting the spikes to a level where it’s now giving athletes an advantage to run even faster,” Bolt had told Reuters in an interview last year.

Rojas pays the price

Interestingly, a world class triple jumper’s bid to win a major medal in the long jump ended because of her using the wrong shoe.

Yulimar Rojas, who won her third successive gold at the World Championships, had to miss the long jump event in Eugene.

Yulimar Rojas, of Venezuela, competes during the women’s triple jump final at the World Athletics Championships. (AP)

The thickness of the sole of her shoes when she jumped 6.93 metres to qualify in June was 5 millimetres thicker than what is allowed in the long jump. Rojas had jumped 6.93 metres at the Reunion de Atletismo Ciudad de Guadalajara in June to book her ticket for the Worlds.

As per the current ‘athletic shoe regulations’ which came into force from January 1, 2022, maximum thickness of the sole of a shoe for field events should not be more than 20 millimetres or two centimetres. However, an exception is the triple jump in which the sole can be 25 mm thick.

Comments are closed.