Non-Nike Athletes May Be F**ked - Nike WILL Release Alphaflys and they WILL BE LEGAL for 2020 Tokyo

Raggedman wrote:

Where's the eye bleach? Those things can't be unseen.

Remember when the Porsche Panamera came out? It was fine from certain angles but then the ugly angle was enough to make you feel sick.

Specified in the Rules wrote:

deathinparadise wrote:

Actually it's even worse than the average 35/45, the article says "39.5mm-45mm " so it seems they could be interpreting the rule as "the lowest height of the sole has to be a maximum of 40mm" ? What next ? A 39.5mm/51.5mm shoe with a 12mm drop ?

The rules clearly state that the stack height will be measured in the toe and in the heel. It even specified a certain distance in from the heel and in from the toe where the measurement will be taken. So no, a 39.5mm/51.5mm shoe will not meet the max of 40mm. Both measurements need to be under 40mm. It could be that the foam rises up around the heel cup, making the stack height look taller than it really is.

So then it should be banned, right? Is Nike selling banned shoes?

And the “technology” is trickling down to trainers to help in training.

600mRunner wrote:

Yes, they have new regulation, but Nike obviously knew what these were going to be and their competitors will not have time to release an alphafly rivaling shoes before the Olympics.

This was my key takeaway from Nike announcing their shoe specs so soon after the rules were released. As 600m points out, it is not fair to other companies if Nike gets to make the rules.

The amount of conjecture and just plain misinformation on the message boards is insane - as usual. You know you can read the actual rules right?

Just to clear some things up:

Vaporflys as prototypes and on sale to the public for over 4 years now.

WA isn’t going to ban a shoe they let be in competition that long.

Nike has been working with WA for years to make sure the next% platform is and would stay legal.

Other companies pushed for the new rules.

Carbon fiber plates are allowed in anything.

The Alphafly used in Ineos had 1 plate.

The rules allow a stack height OVER 40mm. 40mm is the limit at the two measuring locations (back from toe and heel) for a men’s size 8. It scales up as the shoe size goes up. Read the rules.

Nike shoes for the Olympics will be on sale in time for them to be used in Tokyo.

Alphafly on sale 2/29.

The Viperfly spike is currently not legal because it has 3 plates and the stack height is too high for spikes. Nike will revise it in time to be compliant with new rules.

More new Nike shoes likely to come out - matumbo and peg turbo.

Every athlete at the Trials and Tokyo will have the opportunity to wear Nike shoes. Nike will not hold them back from non-Nike athletes. Plus they will all have been on sale to the public beforehand. The playing field IS LEVEL. Now it’s up to the other athletes and shoe companies.

The equipment dilemma is something all pro athletes - especially ones in some other sports like triathlon or cycling or swimming but also basketball - have had to deal with forever. If you sign on with someone who makes inferior product that’s on you. See Lonzo Ball and Big Baller Brand shoes.

The laws of physics etc are not patentable. The use of pebax and CF can't possibly be patentable....nor is pebax the last word in foam. If the CF plate matches the shape of the foot...again, not patentable. I also don't think it's in Nike's interest to litigate too strongly on this...this is always going to be a niche market shoe, and being the only shoe brand allowed to make such a shoe would, actually, certainly lead to it being banned. All boats rise or fall together. Nike will always be the sector leader...they know that. Why sue everyone else when they can win regardless.

Dude everyone knew the rules were going to be change to one plate and a reduced height. A coworker and I were chatting and we both firgured one plate and 30mm

Don’t you think a company like Nike would have had plans for this? Oh I don’t know had several different shoes ready to go?

And it isn’t unfair if any Olympic runner could run in them if they wanted.

not sure wrote:

More info here:

https://hypebeast.com/2020/2/nike-air-zoom-alphafly-next-tempo-viperfly-victory-spikes-release-date-info-atomknit-running-2020-olympics-tokyo

Quotes the stack at 45mm, so I'm not sure how that'd be legal.

+1 Exactly, essentially Nike is spitting at the IAAF and saying we run the sport ban them. I hope that all the guys at the Olympics in Alphaflys get DQed and some little Japanese guy coming 11th in Asics or Mizuno gets the gold. I would wet my pants with laughter ?

Do you have any idea how far you are prepared to let shoe technology take us? If yes, please tell us.

Seriously mate? wrote:

I wonder if the 40mm stack height refers to average stack height? If the heel was 45mm and the forefoot 35mm then it would average out to 40mm and still be "legal."

"Further, with immediate effect there will be an indefinite moratorium on any shoe (whether with or without spikes) that does not meet the following requirements:

The sole must be no thicker than 40mm.

The shoe must not contain more than one rigid embedded plate or blade (of any material) that runs either the full length or only part of the length of the shoe. The plate may be in more than one part but those parts must be located sequentially in one plane (not stacked or in parallel) and must not overlap.

For a shoe with spikes, an additional plate (to the plate mentioned above) or other mechanism is permitted, but only for the purpose of attaching the spikes to the sole, and the sole must be no thicker than 30mm."

Interesting, looks like Nike may be arguing a legal technicality via 'the average' stack height, unless they have shaved off foam and not informed anyone.

adidas, where are you? wrote:

tarckstar wrote:

Adidas is going to be okay. Skechers will continue to surprise.

But Brooks/Saucony/Just about everyone else needs to buy out OnCloud yesterday to stand a shred of a chance. Nike has tried everything for the past 50 years, and they're putting it all in these shoes. Nobody has patents that will allow them to do anything remotely close.

Trials are going to Nike and Hoka. If Hoka grabs OnCloud IP, Saucony and Brooks are a memory.

How is Adidas OK, but not Brooks or Saucony? At least Brooks and Saucony are releasing VF competitors this spring. Does Adidas have anything that comes close? The way I see it, Adidas has been caught flat-footed with its own technology (carbon plate, foam). Boost shoes don't even come close to VFs. I'd buy Reebok Floatride ahead of Boost at this point.

Um Rhonex Kipruto?

Subway Surfers wrote: Exactly, essentially Nike is spitting at the IAAF and saying we run the sport ban them. I hope that all the guys at the Olympics in Alphaflys get DQed and some little Japanese guy coming 11th in Asics or Mizuno gets the gold. I would wet my pants with laughter ?

If you actually read the rules you'd realize that the 40mm stack height limit is not a hard limit; you can have shoes with higher stack heights but still be IAAF legal.

Apparently reading is hard.

Tommy Ferrari wrote:

I don't understand how all the other shoe companies were caught so off guard by this shoe. All the people involved in designing a shoe and bringing it into production, and Brooks et al can't find ONE source within Nike to tell them about the damn thing so that they can get started with tech of their own to respond? I bet Nike knows what is going on within Brooks's R&D department...because their information people are doing their jobs.

If you're a non-Nike athlete. Don't be pissed at Nike. Be pissed at your own shoe sponsor.

I honestly bet Nike isn't even worried about what's going on over at Brooks lol.

You probably wet your pants on a regular basis..

U know nothing jon snow wrote:

The amount of conjecture and just plain misinformation on the message boards is insane - as usual. You know you can read the actual rules right?

True that.

U know nothing jon snow wrote:

The rules allow a stack height OVER 40mm. 40mm is the limit at the two measuring locations (back from toe and heel) for a men’s size 8. It scales up as the shoe size goes up. Read the rules.

This is misleading. For those who are interested in actually reading the 'rules', see the linked WA file, look at moratorium 5.13.1-5.13.3.

What he is referring to is how shoes are measured-Rule 5.5, specifically note iii:

"The maximum sole thicknesses referred to in Rule 5 are based on the sole thickness of a standard sample unisex size 42 (EUR). World Athletics acknowledges that a shoe above that standard sample size might contain a marginally thicker sole than that of a standard sample size shoe of the same make and model, which marginal increase in sole thickness is only attributable to the larger size of the shoe. Such marginal increases will be disregarded for the purposes of confirming compliance with these Rules."

The way you describe it makes it seem as though the IAAF /WA specifically allows shoes with a stack height greater than 40 mm, and that a shoe's stack height could be infinitely high assuming the increase in height is attributed to the runner's shoe size being larger.

They're just saying the shoe might be marginally thicker if a runner's shoe size is over EUR 42. If the shoe is noticeably thicker it is still against the rules and must be handed over to officials per their request.

NoBan wrote:

Saw this article on twitter from Nike. Found it quite interesting.

http://news.nike.com/news/air-zoom-alphafly-next-percent

Editor's note: We changed the title of the thread to make it clear that Nike has publicly announced the new AlphaFlys and that it's believed they will be legal for Tokyo 2020. When the thread started, many thought they were only for amateur runners. We deleed the posts talking about how the amateur runners would be in better shoes than the pros. Below is a picture of the shoe pros will soon be racing in.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/nikeinc/assets/93825/NIKE_AIR_ZOOM_ALPHAFLY_NEXT_PERCENT_native_1600.jpg?1580334343

True. Got a notification in the Nike app. inviting to sign up for notification the day of release.

I'm with you until your conclusions. You are choosing to value capitalism or innovation over fairness and a level playing field. Most of us don't want running to be all about the shoes. I'm not against shoes getting better. It's too late to compare pre-2016 times to Vaporfly times already. You really want to see half the contenders on Nike 8%s vs. non-Nike runners on maybe 3% shoes? Might as well be a different race category, like how auto racing has a lot of different classes.

Tighter control of the technology can potentially allow for both innovation and fairness. Nike's announcement with the Alphafly just after the World Athletic's new rules came out does look possibly fishy as others have pointed out, as if they had input on the 40 mm number.

Tighter control in a future rule revision could be done in a way like cycling or car racing. Every aspect of a NASCAR car from the shape, to powertrain, suspension, and tires has to be a certain spec.

Or maybe the rules could be revised some day to do that shoe efficiency test that the CU Boulder study did. Prototypes need to submitted for testing, and if a certain amount better than existing shoes, can't be used for racing for one or two years. The testing authority would announce the numbers and other manufacturers would have that time to try to catch up.

I'm not sure why we're putting so much weight on one news outlet's report of the height. I've seen some outlets peg the height at 50 mm even. It's pretty clear that no one knows exactly what the height is; otherwise there wouldn't be some articles saying 45 and others saying 50 for the same shoe.

Also, the rules are new and without precedent, and we don't know the size shoe that the "45" was measured on, and +5mm could be something that IAAF doesn't care about.

Subway Surfers wrote:

Seriously mate? wrote:

I wonder if the 40mm stack height refers to average stack height? If the heel was 45mm and the forefoot 35mm then it would average out to 40mm and still be "legal."

Interesting, looks like Nike may be arguing a legal technicality via 'the average' stack height, unless they have shaved off foam and not informed anyone.

This is incorrect.

There is no 'average' sole measurement in the rule's languages. See my post above for the full document in rule 5.5.

The sole must be measured at or below 40mm at both the forefoot and the heel, with some leeway for shoe sizes above EUR 42.