Olympic sports tech: Get ready to run in super shoes designed for champs

The Netherlands’ Sifan Hassan left the world behind in her first Olympic marathon, this year. The loud and proud American sprinter Noah Lyles won the 100m but finished third in his favourite 200m race, losing to Letsile Tebogo of Botswana. St Lucia’s Julien Alfred beat the USA’s Sha’Carri Richardson in women’s 100m. Norwegian hurdler Karsten Warholm, world record-holder in 400m hurdles, could only manage a third place. And Eliud Kipchoge, the Kenyan marathon legend, didn’t finish.

Also read: Olympic athletes and their high-tech gear

At the end of two weeks of high-level athletic performances at the Paris Olympics, the podium places and medals have been decisively won but underneath it all is an on-going race for shoe-tech supremacy.

The usual suspects of the shoe world — Nike, Adidas and Puma — are still competing hard out there.  While Nike’s marathon hero Kipchoge dropped out of the Olympic marathon after the 30km mark, Hassan, wearing the brand’s top-end road running Alphafly 3 shoes, set a new Olympic record. On track, Puma scored a gold with Alfred in the glamorous 100m, Lyles streaked to 100m gold on Adidas Y-3 spikes while Tebogo, in a pair of Nikes, zoomed ahead of Lyles in the 200m. Gabby Thomas (women’s 200m) and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (400m hurdles) put New Balance on the board. No clear winner has emerged in Paris after Puma struck gold in track and Nike ruled the roost in road races in Tokyo Olympics, three years earlier. 

However, that’s mainly because most brands have caught up with Nike on carbon technology. While all the big brands have had a fair bit of success as far as medals are concerned, there’s pressure coming from young brands like Hoka One One and the Swiss shoes On, which has the legendary tennis star Roger Federer as one of its backers. 

What makes a super shoe?

“In Tokyo, it was a race against the clock to update technology in our spikes and shoes. The playing ground has levelled. Brands have caught up with each other,” says Jose Van Der Veen, product line management head for track and field at Puma North America, Inc. Since Tokyo, all brands have continued to develop their foam, and everyone now has a more responsive, lighter foam boasting a much higher energy return, which is what every athlete craves. While Puma focused on fine-tuning its Nitro technology, Nike, Adidas and Asics have launched revamped versions of ZoomX, Lightstrike Pro and FF Blast respectively, in the last three years. 

“What makes a super spike or a super shoe is the combination of ridged plates and foams and how these two elements interact with each other. We have invested a lot in foam development and have been able to continuously increase the responsiveness in our Nitro foam,” adds Van Der Veen. 

Alongside the foam, the shape and geometry of the shoe has also evolved. The rocking geometry with a boat-shaped curve has emerged as the most popular design. This shape aids in faster transition from foot strike (both heel and mid-foot strikers) to toe-off during a run. What’s worth mentioning is that the performance of these shoes in elite competitions doesn’t just have a bearing on sales and profits. It also leads to transfer of technology from the shoes used by athletes to shoes that end up on the commercial market that the rest of the world uses. 

From sports to retail stores

The pair of shoes that Kipchoge used to run the sub-2 hour marathon in 2019, led to multiple design and technology transfers in new shoes that Nike launched after that feat, said Nike’s chief design officer Martin Lotti.

The design elements from the carbon shoes have led to an Air unit running all through the base of the Nike Air Zoom Pegasus Premium [set to launch in January 2025],” he said pointing to the pair of prototype shoes that he was wearing during an event at the Centre Pompidou in Paris during the Olympic Games. It wasn’t just shoes, even the clothes that Kipchoge and the pacers wore at the Paris Olympics, were designed especially for the event. 

“Nike works with 13,000 athletes across multiple sports and disciplines and we collaborate with them and take their inputs while developing and designing our products as they know best what they need,” adds the Swiss-born Lotti, who has spent the last 27 years with Nike. Those technological developments and design elements , too, find their way into the apparel and accessories sold in retail stores for everyone to purchase. This couldn’t be timelier with a new marathon season just round the corner. 

With races coming thick and fast — BMW Berlin Marathon is on September 29, Bank of America Chicago Marathon on October 13, TCS Amsterdam Marathon and Vedanta Delhi Half Marathon on October 20, and TCS New York City Marathon on November 3 — one question that will be on top of the mind of hundreds of thousands of runners, as they chase targets, will be about what shoes and apparel to train and race in. Keeping the ‘Olympic’ sports tech innovations in mind, one wouldn’t be too far from the mark in saying that marathoners and recreational athletes can look forward to enjoying the latest technology and design used by Lyles, Kipchoge and Hassan to help them in their fitness goals. Never mind that it is likely to leave their wallets significantly lighter. 

Shrenik Avlani is a writer and editor and the co-author of The Shivfit Way, a book on functional fitness.

Also read: Why it’s normal for your body weight to fluctuate