Warholm on Nike's super spikes: "Bullsh!t" , takes dig at Benjamin

There is no reason why someone of Viking stock can't be a top athlete. But, the prominent athlete I can think of who was so public about being anti-super shoe was ... Shelby "Burrito" Houlihan.

fugue state wrote:

He is wearing a spike with a carbon plate. Please see the post above which provides a very good explanation. Would you like to elaborate or do you just prefer punchy one liners without any real substance?

I prefer the short answer, as I believe anything else will be wasted time. Most that post here (on any subject) are convinced that they are experts. Ironically, their opinions come from pseudo facts that they have usually read here. Those opinions do not change no matter the authority cited or facts presented. Though, there are exceptions. SalStitch, as usual, provides succinct and calculated information from his bat cave in Portland. However, I can also give you some “substance” as you asked for.

As discussed by Sal above, if having a carbon plate is what creates a “super spike” in your view, then yes, that’s what they are. End of story. But then so would the zoom victory given to pros from 2007 on (if preferred) also be considered a “super shoe”. And so would one of Jeremy wariner’s modified spikes for Athens dating back to 2004 (2002 prototype). Just because there’s a new spike created to compete with the Dragonfly or 2019 Victory does not make it a super spike, in my opinion. Again, I suppose it depends according to your personal definition of a nebulous term. Would the jasari have been thought of as a super spike with its completely different design snd components? Excluding the carbon infused upper, warholm’s spike with its carbon plate and titanium pins is not revolutionary. You will get many answers from people that think they know what they are talking about, but the overwhelming majority of them are not close to the source. The benefit from a “super shoe” comes from the foam as demonstrated in the physiologic efficiency studies done both by Nike and independently- not to do with a carbon plate. Certainly, stiffness is important for some people as by the rigidity created, but that is not the cause for increased efficiency or technological enhanced performance. Physicists can argue until out of breath, but even the shape of the plate has also not demonstrated a statistically significant difference. Even the air has once already been present in a Nike spike dating to 1986-ish. You’re welcome to ask Tom Carlio, Chris Cooks, Stephen Keating, Elliot Heath, or Nick Roche for whatever your preferred spike brand flavour du juor might be for more in depth analysis on both testing of shoes and their actual construction differences. For older historical information on this, Jonny Truax would be your preferred source.

Again, it depends on your definition of what comprises a “super shoe”. There is mostly nothing new under the sun.

Excuse typos. English is not my preferred language of discussion.[/quote]

Haha great post well said! You can just ask me though, there is a strong possibility I might know and I am happy to help educate people on this subject.

What a load of garbage. There's nothing coarse or unpleasant about Scandinavians.

El Keniano wrote:

Sopa de SabadelI wrote:

Are Norwegian track athletes just d.i.c.k.s in general?

Ingebrigtsens also make it hard to root for them.

I’m starting to think it’s a Scandinavian thing. Just coarse, unpleasant people. Did you see today’s track cycling incident between Denmark 🇩🇰 GB 🇬🇧 (a team I’m hardly inclined to root for, btw)? It was clearly entirely the Danish guy’s fault. But that didn’t stop him from vomiting a volley of expletives on live international TV and wanting to beat up the very guy he’d crashed into from behind.

Imagine if Amos and Jewett had the same confronting personalities? I’ll be rooting for Rai in this rivalry.

"The first step, says Geoff Burns, a biomechanics expert and leading voice on shoe technology, is to “forget everything” we know about what constitutes a fast time. “In athletics, times and performances are our currency,” he says. “But some shoe companies have printed a bunch more money, and we have just had inflation. So we have to stop getting excited about fast times – because everything has changed.”

"Burns also believes it is too early to say how much the new spikes improve performance – and he cautions that their impact may vary by event, as race speed, athlete mechanics and contact times with the track differ. However, he suggests that “something in the order of 1-1.5%” is a reasonable hypothesis. “It doesn’t sound like a lot but 1% is enormous at elite levels,” he says. “That’s 15m metres over 1500m. How many races are decided by much less than that?”"

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2021/feb/22/super-spikes-seismic-shift-athletics-track-nike-air-zoom-victory-tokyo-olympics

How likely is it that Warholm is contractually obliged to draw attention to the show debate?

shoe

Look at the source, “The Guardian”. Warholm likely said nothing at all, but his victory offends the outlet’s sensibilities, what with Warholm being one of those hated caucasians and all.

In actual interviews Warholm has spoken about the version of carbon fiber shoe he’s wearing, and while commenting on air pockets which he didn’t like, didn’t mention Benjamin at all.

Peak wokeness has yet to be reached, but it’s coming.

Van Sciver Art wrote:

Look at the source, “The Guardian”. Warholm likely said nothing at all, but his victory offends the outlet’s sensibilities, what with Warholm being one of those hated caucasians and all.

In actual interviews Warholm has spoken about the version of carbon fiber shoe he’s wearing, and while commenting on air pockets which he didn’t like, didn’t mention Benjamin at all.

Peak wokeness has yet to be reached, but it’s coming.

Look at this source as well:

- I've never run on air, so I do not know what it's like. Rai runs on air, he has the shoes… that I hate, by the way. But the course, it is fantastic, says Warholm.

Rai Benjamin is sponsored by Nike and runs in one of their new super shoes that has both a carbon fiber plate at the bottom and a layer of super light foam in the sole.

Warholm also runs in a brand new shoe from Puma which also has a carbon fiber plate at the bottom, but there is no foam layer.

- I have a cruel shoe. My coach and I have been involved in developing it. We collaborated with Puma and the Mercedes F1 team that add carbon fiber, says Warholm and hands out another boot to the Nike shoes:

- If you put a trampoline in your shoes… it's [bullsh*t] and destroys the credibility of our sport.

high school xc coach wrote:

just bizarre to have this reaction after a historic win. very unsportsmanlike. doesn't reflect well on him at all.

Bizarre for him to have an opinion on a controversial topic of shoes and track times?

Warholm is a douchebag.

I'm guessing Nike would sign him to a contract if he wanted access to "super spikes."

Jakob C. Hocker wrote:

- I've never run on air, so I do not know what it's like. Rai runs on air, he has the shoes… that I hate, by the way. But the course, it is fantastic, says Warholm.

- If you put a trampoline in your shoes… it's [bullsh*t] and destroys the credibility of our sport.

- I have a cruel shoe. My coach and I have been involved in developing it. We collaborated with Puma and the Mercedes F1 team that add carbon fiber, says Warholm and hands out another boot to the Nike shoes:

He doesn't know what the Nike shoes are like but he hates them and is convinced that they are like trampolines and destroying the credibility of the sport. He has developed a bad shoe with Mercedes F1 team and Puma and now has to run with it. Got it.

for those who might know wrote:

How likely is it that Warholm is contractually obliged to draw attention to the show debate?

Not likely.

But it's a huge topic and debate amongst athletes at the moment - mostly because athletes themselves have absolutely zero real knowledge of what the shoes are and how they work. This leads to some wild theories on product does because the default is to assume that someone elses product has something magical that yours doesn't.

Like Warholm is a classic case here - a zoom air bag is a "trampoline"? If you think that tiny plastic bubble can generate enough elastic resiliency force to propel a 180lb human being you are dreaming. But people press it with their thumbs with a laughable amount of force and feel the little plastic bubble resist back and the imagination runs wild. And even if you could even quantify the effect of the air bag as anything appreciable, the fact that the part alone and gluing it into the midsole adds maybe 15 grams onto the spike would offset that miniscule gain.

But it's all perception and mental. I've written this before, the best thing Nike did with these products? Make no claims (like they did with the 4%/breaking 2 project) and let athlete and public imagination run wild. I can tell you it is more than effective. The stories I have heard of athletes becoming sports scientists and making lab-level claims on "zoom bagged" product in particular are absolutely wild.

Free rent in athletes minds man, free rent.

Definitely weird to totally rip on a guy that you just beat. Maybe he actually thinks the only reason Benjamin was close was because of the shoes, like, in a world without the shoes Karsten Warholm is the untouchable god of the 400h, and because of the shoes he had to share his historic Olympic moment with someone else. Hmmm.

Waaaah! Waaaaaaaah! Waaaaaaaaaaahhh!

Lol at “hating” super spikes but running on a one-of-a-kind prototype built by puma and f1 engineers

Meanwhile... Shoe makers are laughing their way to the bank selling vastly over priced "super shoes" while sponsored athletes distract from that fact by arguing over who's technology is more (or less) fair.

Hint: Shoes don't win races, athletes do.

First things first:

- He didn't name drop any competitors.

- He made a general statement about shoe technology and the fact that modern shoes could help lesser athletes beat records, i.e. Marcell Jacobs going sub 9.69 or 9.58. That would be preposterous.

- The gist of his argument is that he wants athletic performances to be comparable over time.

Unfortunately for him that is but a pipe dream. There are so many interests working in the opposite direction, most importantly event organizers, shoe makers and the athletes themselves.

Event organizers want to create an entertaining product: records are entertaining.

Shoe makers want their products to be part of records: hype and sales.

Athletes want to exploit any legal competitive edge.

Khalifa International Stadium in Doha is air-conditioned which lets them control the humidity and temperature to a certain degree. The next logical step is probably creating an artificial tailwind.

MONDO tracks are bouncier than regular sports flooring, and any stadium with state-of-the-art MONDO will yield better results. The same goes for certain Beynon tracks, such as BU TTC indoor and Oregon Hayward Field. Berlin and Monaco are deprecated now. Tokyo is something unique.

Currently shoes are subject to control in case of records. Sawed in half from heel to toe if necessary, to determine whether it's within the legal limits or not. This is actually pretty easy to control from a governance point of view, but I guess the standards could be more stringent. The Viperflies, ridiculous as they are, were shelved fortunately.

Wavelight is also a controversial element. Reminds you of Chris Froome climbing hills for 2 hours while looking at his wattmeter, safe and boring. It produces great mid- and long-distance results, but some argue it's not in the true spirit of the sport.

To summarize: most running records in Tokyo are due to athletes and the track surface, not shoes. The climate is too hostile for records in the 1500m and longer, not to mention prelims and semis being demanding. Put the equivalent of the Tokyo track surface in Monaco or Hengelo, and it will be very entertaining.

alpha wrote:

Meanwhile... Shoe makers are laughing their way to the bank selling vastly over priced "super shoes" while sponsored athletes distract from that fact by arguing over who's technology is more (or less) fair.

Hint: Shoes don't win races, athletes do.

Yes ^^