New records ennoble us all, for they represent the best of who we are. And when they come in our own time, some of that greatness attaches itself to us, which is why we yearn to see records fall and barriers broken. Not for what they are of themselves, but for what they mean with us having watched, as witnessing validates the action itself.
Yet the response to the new marathon records of recent weeks in Berlin and Chicago – from cheers to jeers – has shown the same wide variance as the response to the new shoe technology by the athletes.
As Ross Tucker, PhD in Exercise Physiology, co-host of The Real Science of Sport podcast, wrote to LetsRun.com’s Robert Johnson in response to Tigst Assefa’s world record in Berlin:
“I truly wish the authorities had acted to prevent this entirely foreseeable situation, for a few reasons. The main one is that the range of responses to them (super shoes) is so large (from plus 11% in running efficiency to minus 11%) that we cannot sit with any confidence and evaluate performances between different athletes independent of this nagging doubt over what the shoes do. That is…the differences between athletes is smaller than the differences made by the shoe, to the same athlete, and between different athletes.”
This creates a most vexing circumstance, given the purpose of the enterprise is to compare athletes on a level playing field, and then to compare them with those who came before. It is that through-line of apple-to-apple comparison that actually creates a lasting sport.
Now the playing field has been tipped, and continues to tip, perhaps irreparably, to where what came before no longer relates. And even that would be fine, if today’s athletes were playing on equal footing. But they’re not either.
Today, person X in super shoe A wins in a record-breaking time. But that same person in super shoe B may not respond as well and wouldn’t make the podium at all. Is that how it’s supposed to work?
Coming late to its oversight — Nike secretly introduced the first super shoes into competition at the 2016 at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in L.A. — World Athletics amended its rules regarding shoe midsole height on January 30, 2020, grandfathering the maximum stack to 40mm. But the shoe designers didn’t stop innovating the midsole materials as WA formed a Working Group to determine future policy.
In December 2021, World Athletics further stated, “The major and central issue the Working Group on Athletic Shoes had been exploring is a long-term sustainable and implementable solution for athletic shoes which balances innovation and fairness.”
That is a perfectly sound oversight goal, right in line with what we ask such a governance to do.
“The Working Group considered options within a framework of measuring performance advantages of the current technology in athletic shoes, including energy return. While this work has merit, a maximum energy return has not been included in the rules and regulations, given the variables involved and the potential impact on shoe manufacturers in its implementation.”
You have to read the underlined portion twice to convince yourself you read it correctly.
A maximum energy return has NOT been included in the rules and regulations, given the variables involved and the potential impact on shoe manufacturers in its implementation.
That’s an almost a stunning admission. The variables are what skew the outcomes! The variables are what make regulation necessary. Midsole height is only one of the critical factors. Energy return, along with running economy, is the holy grail of the new technology, and officials leave it out of their regulations “given the variables involved and the potential impact on shoe manufacturers”? What about the impact on the sport?
I suspect a great number of people have long believed the sport has been beholden to (in the pocket of) the major shoe companies for far too long. But that December 2021 release stated the quiet part out loud.
In short order, the Nike prototypes worn by Kelvin Kiptum in Chicago seemed to have trumped the Adidas Adizero Adiós Evo 1 shoe worn by Tigst Assefa in Berlin with its new lightweight midsole foam and rocker technology. Three weeks ago, Adidas held the newest tech, putting it ahead of the curve of the older Nike Vaporflys. Now Nike has answered. That’s how fast the innovations are coming.
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Why are performance-enhancing drugs not allowed in competition? Because their use alters the basic athlete versus athlete equation and skews competition outcomes. Well, that’s what the new super shoes are doing, too. Such innovation may be fine for exhibitions like Eliud Kiochoge’s Sub2 and INEOS 1:59 attempts in Monza ‘17 and Vienna ‘19. But they should not automatically be fine for the competitive arena where a foundational level of equal footing must prevail.
Running isn’t alone. We’ve seen a variation of the same theme in Formula One racing in recent years.
Between 2008 and 2020, Lewis Hamilton won a record-tying seven F1 series championships before the F1 bosses changed the cars’ ground-effects formulation for the 2022 season. Next thing you know, Hamilton and his Mercedes were nowhere to be found, and Max Verstappen in his Red Bull ride became the new F1 king. He just won his third straight series championship in Qatar last week with his record 14th win of the season.
But before Verstappen and Hamilton, Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel won four championships in a row (2010-2013), and Renault’s Fernando Alonzo won in 2005-2006 to end the reign of the Michael Schumacher-Ferrari combination that had dominated for so long.
We went from Schumacher dominating to Vettel dominating to Hamilton dominating to Verstappen. When the turnover in driver ascendance is so cut and dried, it suggests the difference in outcome is being determined by the cars’ set up rather than the drivers’ skills. Did Hamilton suddenly become a poor driver? What if they put Yuki Sonoda in the Max Verstappen Red Bull car and Verstappen in Sonoda’s Alphatauri?
That’s the problem. We’re trying to determine the difference in drivers’ capabilities, not those of their engineers.
Tristan Harris, cofounder, Center for Humane Technology, appeared on Bill Maher’s Real Time show Friday night on HBO MAX discussing advances in artificial intelligence (AI). It rung a bell in my mind.
“People always say we freak out about the newest technology, but this is different. This is ongoing, and competitive, and market driven. Human intelligence is one way to think about it.
“It used to take years of study and intelligence and cognitive labor to write a movie script or a book or to know how to synthesize a biological weapon,” said Harris. “These are all forms of cognition that took human beings years to develop. Now AI has dropped that cost and effort, and just like with fossil fuels, the people who jump on that train first get benefits and efficiencies compared to those who don’t.”
In running, besides talent, it used to take years of development to run a world-class marathon. Olympic champion Frank Shorter said it, “You don’t run 26 miles at five minutes a mile on good looks and a secret recipe.”
But now, top performers put on a pair of the new super shoes and, given how well they respond, their training exponentially improves, because they can train harder, with less rest, because the pounding is not as great, and the recovery is that much faster. So, their fitness improves along with their performances. But not because of who they are, but because of what they’re wearing on their feet. Shoe intelligence has shortened everything, from rest periods to practical race distance. Making this a different era altogether.
In response to an email thread between past champions Bill Rodgers, Amby Burfoot, Jack Fultz, and Bob Hodge, I wrote:
As Tristan Harris said, “With AI, we keep scaling and releasing advancements faster than society can consciously absorb them.”
That’s what’s happening with the super shoes. In both cases, our basic understanding of underlying assumptions has become clouded. We don’t know what to believe. Is that an actual picture? Or did AI generate it? Is that an actual record? Or did super shoes enable it?
“AI has the promise, but it also has the peril,” concluded Mr. Harris. “It will give us drugs that save people from cancers and help us in many other ways. Problem is, you also have CEOs saying it could wreck everything, too.”
END
WANDERING IN A RUNNING WORLD 
The same argument came out with fiberglass Pole Vault poles. A much bigger change and most adapted.
The fancy shoes aren’t going anywhere. Besides compared to the lunacy in mountaineering the shoes are benign and will extend careers. The Times yesterday on a story about 2 newbie American women climbers trying to set a speed record. They both died.
“It is galling for mountaineers who earned their spurs the hard way to see their achievements swatted aside. Stephen Venables, 69, a British climber who reached the summit of Everest in 1988 without bottled oxygen by a new route up the Kangshung Face thinks there are “charlatans who hoodwink the world into thinking that they are in any way remotely compatible to some of the greatest mountaineers”.
He added: “Messner was totally alone on Everest. He climbed it by a route he’d never seen before, falling into a crevasse on the way, carrying his tent and survival equipment up and down the mountain in three days without any support of any kind. How do you compare that with someone being escorted by helicopter to base camp, put in luxury accommodation with central heating, then escorted up the mountain by the local baggage carriers? It’s just a very expensive package tour.”
Yet while these climbers may have more help, such is the pressure to break records and outdo competitors that their pursuit is proving even more perilous.”
Toni,
This is an important article in the debate and also the contribution from Ross Tucker. I also think the obsession with times has become a negative factor, an obsession shared by some who cover the sport. I think the comparison with Formula One is apt. The latter is about the cars with the drivers an add-on, thought the general reporting, understandably concentrated on rivalry between drivers. I’m not a petrolhead so articles would leave me cold and probably the general public also but, in essence, that is what F-1 is, races between teams. Road running and the new shoes is in danger of following suit.
Andy Edwards
Andy,
Thanks for that mountaineering information. Tech advances will always come along. And that is fine. But it is up to the stewards of any sport/activity to manage those introductions so that an even playing field is maintained as closely as possible as the new tech becomes fully immersive.
Fiber glass poles were certainly a game-changer. But all the athletes at that time were using poles of similar makeup, such that, though obliterating past records from the days of aluminum, the difference in poles wasn’t determining the outcome of competitions, the athletes still were.
Don’t all field event implements have to meet strict standards so the competition remains intact?
The wide range of athlete responses to the super shoes, +/- 11% in running efficiency, makes it difficult to understand the impact on records and races. Is it the shoes or the people? At least, that’s the argument. But now that the new tech has become so entangled in the sport before regulation entered the scene, we are left with these debates and doubts. None of which are helpful or fair to the runners. Again, thanks for contributing.
Toni
From SI 1962….
“Few people, other than some IAAF officials and a handful of coaches and vaulters who do not use fiber glass, want Uelses’ record invalidated or the pole disqualified. Most vocal critic of the fiber-glass is Don Bragg, who held the world record until George Davies (a fiber-glass user) broke it last year. Bragg grumbled then; when Uelses soared over 16 feet Bragg complained bitterly.
“What do they want?” said he. “A circus or an athletic event? The vaulter with the fiber-glass pole has the pole do all his work. Speed is no longer of the essence. Nor is strength. Now it’s all a matter of coordination.”
https://vault.si.com/vault/1962/02/26/he-could-do-it-on-bamboo
Formula 1 takes a billion dollars to be competitive. The comparison with $300 shoes is silly.
Certainly not helping the American men much. About the same as 40 years ago.
Could be a matter of poor response. You’d think someone would show, though.
Timely and pertinent.