Athletics world records have been labelled “devalued currency” after a leading former British runner criticised the “farce” of the women’s marathon best being destroyed in a £400 ($818) pair of new Adidas “super shoes”.
Ethiopia’s Tigist Assefa took more than two minutes off the world record in Berlin on Sunday, setting a new best of 2h 11m 53s, that is now almost four minutes superior to Paula Radcliffe’s 16-year world record, which has only ever been surpassed by runners in carbon-boosted shoes.
Every major world record from 5000m all the way up to the marathon has now also been beaten since 2020 by athletes in “super shoes” or “super spikes”, which combine rigid enforcement in the soles with bouncy foam midsoles.
Adidas will on Tuesday release their new ultra-lightweight Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1 road shoe to the public following its staggering major race debut on Assefa’s feet.
Tim Hutchings, an Olympic finalist and a World and European Championships and Commonwealth Games medallist in the 1980s, questioned whether there was now a generation of runners who will never know exactly how good they truly are.
“One big mark of greatness is record-setting, and that’s a devalued currency,” Hutchings said. “It’s one that could and should be raised to its previous value, if only someone used the data to show the big differences made by shoe tech. This generation deserves that and so a fair comparison with history.
“While this was a truly fantastic run... the shoe tech should have been policed better and a ‘new era’ formally recognised. It’s fine if recent iterations of shoes by various brands have cost £150-£200 ($307-$409). Many runners will stump up this cost. When it starts becoming £300-£400, then it’s clearly getting ridiculous.”
Mara Yamauchi, who has slipped from being the second-fastest to fourth-quickest British women’s marathon runner of all time since last year, told Telegraph Sport that she was “struggling to understand” Assefa breaking a world record by more than two minutes.
“What impact the shoes had, or if it was her own ability, we just don’t know,” Yamauchi said. “As I understand it some people respond very well to them [the shoes], others not at all and then everything in between.”
Another retired British marathon runner added: “It’s a complete and utter farce - two hours 11 minutes for a woman is just ridiculous. Nobody got close to Paula Radcliffe’s record for 16 years, then it got obliterated, and now this.
“It’s unsustainable and to me world records now are meaningless. But I think this was quite predictable and World Athletics probably didn’t have much choice but to go along with what the manufacturers wanted. You’re comparing apples with pears compared to former world records.”
Oli Blake, a former national British triathlete, said that attention should be paid to how the new Adidas shoe is reportedly designed only for optimal use over one marathon-distance race. “Are you happy spending £400 on shoes, on top of race entry fee, whilst knowingly engaging in throw-away culture?” Blake said.
Adidas told Telegraph Sport that the shoe had been made “for speed versus durability, and has been engineered to provide maximum support for athletes at the lowest weight possible”. They said that it had been “optimised for over one marathon race, including respective training sessions”.
By 2019, Nike athletes took up almost 90 per cent of the podium places at the six marathon majors and runners from other companies were sometimes even reduced to wearing a Nike shoe but covering the label. Scientists were working hard behind the scenes, however, and every major shoe company now has a “super shoe” that is comparable to the Vaporfly or Alphafly. Indeed, Adidas athletes also took the top four places in the men’s race of the Boston Marathon earlier this year. The big question is whether this extraordinary women’s world record - set in the ultra-light newly-unveiled Adizero Adios Pro 1 - signalled that Adidas has now genuinely stolen a march on Nike.
The defining “super shoe” features are a stiff plate or rods embedded within the midsole, usually made of some sort of carbon, to help hold the shape of the shoe. A curved midsole geometry is also designed to propel the runner forward, with manufacturers all using a lightweight but resilient high-energy foam which, in combination with the stiff plate or rods, can hugely benefit performance. Runners report a much springier feeling that is incrementally more beneficial over longer distances. Experts have estimated improvements in road super shoes of as much as four minutes for elite runners over a marathon, although this varies according to an individual’s running style. These benefits remain significant but are reduced on the track with “super spikes”, which are limited to a heel height of 25mm. The limit on the road shoes is 40mm.
The arrival of super shoes has correlated with a total rewrite of athletics records from the 5000m upwards. According to Chris Thompson, a European 10,000m silver medallist in 2010 and twice an Olympian, this is not just a result of the improved race-day performance but how the shoes have helped runners prepare differently. Thompson is now 42 but still finished in the top 10 of April’s London Marathon and says that athletes recover from intense training sessions more quickly in super shoes, meaning that they can potentially also train harder.
Although the shoes were largely worn only by elite athletes between 2016 and 2021, they have now also become widely available to the general public, generally at a cost of between £160 and £280. An improvement in recreational performances has also followed and, despite the price tag, the shoes are now common in every sort of running event from local parkruns up to the most elite championship races. Their lightweight design has always meant some sort of sacrifice in durability and it remains to be seen whether club runners will be prepared to shell out £400 for the ultra-fast Adios Pro 1 which have been designed for optimal use in only one marathon race.
World Athletics has so far introduced guidelines which limit rather than stifle further innovations, as we have seen this week with the dramatic arrival of the 138 gram Adidas shoe. Ethical questions prompt sharply diverging opinions. Swimming, remember, stepped in to ban super aerodynamic one-piece costumes following a spate of world records. Cycling, by contrast, has allowed technology to flourish and seen great records from past eras surpassed for scientific rather than athletic reasons.
All of the shoe companies now employ vast teams of engineers and scientists, and the race to create faster shoes has become a highly secretive multi-million pound industry. Nike, for example, has the LeBron James Innovation Centre in Oregon, which boasts 400 cameras and endurance and sprint track and experts ranging from biomechanics researchers to robotics specialists. Adidas, similarly, has its state-of-the-art “World of Sports” research campus in Germany.
Dr Thomas Allen, who used to work at Adidas and is now at the Manchester Metropolitan University Institute of Sport, believes we are in an era of continual innovation and that the first sub-two-hour marathon in a major race has become inevitable. “I would argue that this [the Adidas shoe] is just the next iteration - probably next year Nike will come back with something, then another company, and it will just be continuous unless there is some kind of rule change,” said Allen.
“The benefit to these brands is enormous. We have crossed into a new era of alignment between engineering companies, marketing and athletes, where shoes are released to coincide with a particular race.”
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