I recently read Murphy's "The Last Protest: Lee Evans in Mexico," got hooked on the topic of 1968 and followed it up with Vince Matthews' and then Tommie Smith's autobiographies (I have John Carlos's autobiography but am not sure about reading it yet, as Tommie says he full of crap). But one thing they all say was unfair was the ruling that John Carlos' WR in the 200m and Vince Matthews WR in the 400m, both set in a pre-Olympics meet at the Tahoe training center, were illegal because they used Puma brush spikes. Speculation is that the ruling was a result of pressure by Adidas, whose war with Puma was raging then. Are brush spikes legal and in use now?
The official argument against their WRs at the time supposedly was that the spikes had not been available to other athletes long enough. I understand that logic for denying someone a medal in a race (versus other competitors), but why do you deny a WR on that basis? If someone sets a WR in a new, not-widely-available shoe and then it becomes more avaible 6 months later, why is it ok to recognize the later perfomances of athletes using them but not the earlier WR by someone using the exact same shoe?