Wold Athletics' new shoe rules are out. Vaporflys stay, but as of 4/30, shoe must be out for 4 months to use in competition

Just got a call from a top coach. He's irate. A ton of Nike athletes hit Olympic qualifiers in prototype spikes from last year. I'm assuming those times will be allowed but he wants them nullified.

Hadn't thought of that.

Don't these rules mean that virtually ALL current track spikes will be banned?

All the spikes that I know off have plates that are constructed to have molded "spikes" in addition to the screw-in spikes.

Let's put it out there that beyond inception to 2016 other companies could have come up with a competitor, but why they haven't released a competitor from 2016 to April 2020 is beyond me.

I think I read somewhere they had previously 1 year after used in competition to get the shoe out to mass market. But then I think everyone went into a holding pattern.

From a business point of view this doesn't make much sense. They had plenty of time (and still do) to get something out the door by April.

What constitutes widely available? was that defined?

I completely disagree. The 4 months rule is pefectly justified. IAAF is not there to sell shoes, it's there to protect the integrity of the sport and put everyone at the same playing level.

The 4 months rules allow:

- The IAAF to review the technology of the shoes and ban it if needed

- Athletes from a lot of background and sponsors to try it out in training and figure if they are good or not.

- If top athletes win race in a approved shoes, it will become popular so nothing would change for shoes sellers.

4 month rule silly wrote:

When the shoe is out for 4 months or longer, is their a limit to the price point? Could Nike release a shoe, price it at $50,000 a pair, making it impractical for anyone but their select athletes to run it it?

Track cycling has the same "available to others on the retail market" rule. But the rule doesn't say they have to make it easy for the consumer to buy, and that's how they protect their tech. With enough emails, the team will eventually quote you a price for their gear, but the price is so high its not really an option for anyone but the super-rich.

[quote]800 dude wrote:

This 4-month rule is going to be a disaster, not just for the Olympics (because shoe companies were blindsided), but for pro running going forward.

The entire point of professional running is to sell shoes to the masses.

This is just wrong.

Is that really how shoe marketing works, though? I could certainly be wrong, but my interpretation is more along the lines of, people see elite runners, and at a subliminal level, they maybe notice that a lot of those runners have little swooshes on their shoes, or 3 little stripes, or whatever. Then when they go to buy their own running shoes for their 10-20 mpw, they are more inclined to buy shoes with swooshes or stripes because they have formed connections in their mind between those symbols and being a winner. I'm guessing that the masses don't generally care what specific shoe model the winner wore, because much of the time they aren't interested in lightweight racing shoes anyway - they just want a comfortable pair of shoes to jog in, or even just walk around in.

I'll concede that this has changed somewhat in the last couple of years - everybody seems to be talking about Nike racing shoes - but that's because the new shoes are so different. But that won't last forever.

Vaporfly 1

Hobby jogger weirdo 0

rojo wrote:

Just got a call from a top coach. He's irate. A ton of Nike athletes hit Olympic qualifiers in prototype spikes from last year. I'm assuming those times will be allowed but he wants them nullified.

Hadn't thought of that.

An irate coach wants to apply "new" rules to "old" races and DQ those who couldn't accurately predict the future.

Hadn't thought of that? Good, shows your brain is still working

KraftMacAndCheese wrote:

[quote]800 dude wrote:

This 4-month rule is going to be a disaster, not just for the Olympics (because shoe companies were blindsided), but for pro running going forward.

The entire point of professional running is to sell shoes to the masses.

This is just wrong.

How?

LoneStarXC wrote:

I understand why they chose the 40mm stack heigh limit. It’s a round number, and gives some shoe companies some room to innovate further. A pogo show ban would have been nice, but, at least the rocket launcher shoes (i.e AlphaFlys) are out. Now I just wonder if Nike will still sell the AlphaFlys for people to wear at their local turkey trots. ? Boing boing!

It wouldn’t surprise at all. Nike is capable of selling the souls of their own mothers to make a buck and marketing won’t be a problem as others have pointed out: “the shoe that was too fast to be legal”. Good example of how there is no such thing as bad publicity? ??

The Duke Boys wrote:

yee-haw!

This is just like NASCAR in the early days. Sell a few "production cars" to friends of dealers, then you can race it.

Yeah, like the ‘87 “Grand National” I let go off my hands in 1991 for 12 thousand and now is worth a small fortune. Bad timing I guess ??

ERS wrote:

How is this "unfair" to other brands? I cannot believe VF's have been out for YEARS and brands like Saucony/Brooks were still planning on releasing theirs in the SUMMER. Releasing during all of the Nike backlash from July-December would have been brilliant. What are they even doing at those other companies??

This...YEARSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Just curious. What would happen if Jared Ward just decided to run in the Vapor Fly at the trials? Would he be sued by his sponsor or something? Would his sponsor just drop him? I would think that would be a PR nightmare for his sponsor. Wouldn't Ward value being on the Olympic team and/or a possible medal in Tokyo more than his sponsorship? If Ward (or any other non-Nike runner) decided he wanted to take his best shot and a level playing field by wearing the best shoe available, what would happen to them?

Here are the major rules

https://www.pebaxpowered.com/en/news/details/World-Athletics-Official-Ruling-on-Competition-Shoes-for-Elite-Athletes/

wejo wrote:

Very quick takeaways.

1) Pretty much everything except for the Alphaflys goes at the Olympic Marathon Trials.

2) At the Olympics these rules may have institutionalized a Nike advantage. Every other company has to have its catch-up shoe on the market by April 30 or it can't be used at the Olympics.

we corrected the above date to April 30 from April 1 as the detailed rules make clear anything released before April 30th does not have to wait the 4 months. Wejo had put April 1 as that was 4 months before the Olympics

This is not what I want. Ideally I want a 1) level playing field 2) where athletes can run in a shoe made from their sponsor. This meets #1 but not #2.

Getting rid of the 4 month window would address my concern #2 above and let athletes run in shoes by it.

They have forewarning and time to get a limited run of their shoes to market. With the streak 7, Nike released a single colorway, pink, with a single retailer some months before the shoe actually came out everywhere else. Elites shouldn't be getting an unfair shoe advantage over their competitors.

rojo wrote:

Just got a call from a top coach. He's irate. A ton of Nike athletes hit Olympic qualifiers in prototype spikes from last year. I'm assuming those times will be allowed but he wants them nullified.

Hadn't thought of that.

How much do you guys want to bet this "top coach" is John Marcus? He is still butt hurt none of his athletes will ever be on the level of the top Nike athletes.

All in all pretty good changes. Alpha% is a joke so glad we don't have to see that at least. Would have preferred seeing the next% banned too as they are clear mechanical doping. Also hope the nike spikes are hit with the banhammer, we've saw way too many ridiculous performances at Doha and the spikes helped for sure. Nothing against what we've seen on the roads though.

Jaygrainger9 wrote:

rojo wrote:

Just got a call from a top coach. He's irate. A ton of Nike athletes hit Olympic qualifiers in prototype spikes from last year. I'm assuming those times will be allowed but he wants them nullified.

Hadn't thought of that.

How much do you guys want to bet this "top coach" is John Marcus? He is still butt hurt none of his athletes will ever be on the level of the top Nike athletes.

Are you sure it's not JS? Doesn't he claim to be a "top coach"?

On a more serious note, what is the definition of "professional athlete"? I barely hit the OTQ in the marathon. Can I line up against these guys in their own company's shoe that they can't even wear yet? Or, if I get an elite entry, am I considered part of the pro field even though I'm not sponsored by a shoe company? This could get weird. Now a bunch of people around me are not going to ask for elite bibs, pay for their own, then line up behind the elites so they can wear certain shoes. Geesh. This is a mess.