Athletics: World Athletics likely to curb Nike’s ‘supershoes’
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LONDON • Reports that Nike's acclaimed Vaporfly running shoes may be banned from competition might be jumping the gun, but World Athletics is deliberating what limits to place on the maker's carbon plate and foam technology, which was first introduced in 2016.
While the governing body is unlikely to implement a wholesale ban, it wants to put limits on future incarnations, rather than restricting them completely, which the Times of London has suggested.
One option under consideration is to put limits on the size of the foam mid-soles in all shoes, something that would make the next generation AlphaFly shoes worn by Eliud Kipchoge in his sub-two-hour marathon run in Vienna last October illegal.
The Kenyan, who is the reigning Olympic marathon champion, has, however, insisted that focusing on his Nike shoes, which were also used by compatriot Brigid Kosgei when she set the women's marathon record that month, is wrong.
"They are fair," he told the Telegraph. "I trained hard. Technology is growing and we can't deny it - we must go with technology."
The carbon-fibre plates are said to give runners more bounce.
There have also been suggestions that similar shoe technology was used to power British middle-distance runner Laura Muir's spikes last year, but sources close to her say that is "categorically" not the case.
Still, news on a possible clampdown on Nike's Vaporfly shoes, which have been hailed as "super-shoes", led to a rise in investor sentiment for its Japanese rivals Asics and Mizuno yesterday.
Shares in Asics yesterday surged as much as 8 per cent, while Mizuno rose as much as 1.6 per cent.
"The market had concerns that Nike could take Asics' share of the athletic sneakers segment, absent a ban," said Masami Nakanaga, a Tokyo-based analyst at Iwai Cosmo Securities, a Japanese financial services company.
"If the reports are correct, the concerns over sales, as well as the advertising impact that comes from in-competition use, would be relieved."
A ban would bring more attention to Nike's footwear, though, and serve as good advertising for the American sportswear giant, said Tim Morse, an analyst at the Singapore office of Japanese equity advisory firm Asymmetric Advisors.
He added: "It could be a Pyrrhic victory for Asics."
World Athletics intends to announce its findings by the end of this month.
BLOOMBERG, THE GUARDIAN
