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

The 4 months rules seems ridiculous to me. So Nike release the Vaporfly for sale but none of their athletes can wear it for 4 months!? Nonsense. Either the shoe is legal or it's not. Presale online 4 months in advance then.

lopweq wrote:

The 4 months rules seems ridiculous to me. So Nike release the Vaporfly for sale but none of their athletes can wear it for 4 months!? Nonsense. Either the shoe is legal or it's not. Presale online 4 months in advance then.

Does this mean that the prototypes being used by Hall, Ward, Linden et al. have no chance or are they Ok as long as they are released to the public 4 months before the Olympics?

so the alphafly can be used at the trials, then

Editor's note: No. The way we wrote it up top may not be clear. Any shoe over 40mm is banned as of today. Alphaflys are out.

Does the USOC fall under these regulations for the Trials?

Re-reading the rule I believe it does not, which is smart. Thus the Nike crown jewel will be the Vaporfly, and these other brands will release their legal within the rule shoes ahead of April 30 and potentially close the gap (with the Alphaflys being banned)

Nah, the restriction of a single carbon plate applies immediately.

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?

lopweq wrote:

The 4 months rules seems ridiculous to me. So Nike release the Vaporfly for sale but none of their athletes can wear it for 4 months!? Nonsense. Either the shoe is legal or it's not. Presale online 4 months in advance then.

You raise an interesting point. So now the pros will be wearing shoes that are worse than what amateurs are wearing.

We originally ourselves had proposed some sort of deadline for shoes for the Olympics, but the more I think about it, I think that just limiting the type of technology that is allowed makes more sense.

Anyway, here are the release dates for the other company's shoes.

THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:

lopweq wrote:

The 4 months rules seems ridiculous to me. So Nike release the Vaporfly for sale but none of their athletes can wear it for 4 months!? Nonsense. Either the shoe is legal or it's not. Presale online 4 months in advance then.

Does this mean that the prototypes being used by Hall, Ward, Linden et al. have no chance or are they Ok as long as they are released to the public 4 months before the Olympics?

Linden's Brooks prototype is supposed to be going on sale the day before the trials, so those will be legal. Maybe the other brands will step up their timeline for release.

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.

Saucony's shoe which Jared Ward uses was supposed to release after April 1. So he's out of luck at the Olympics. The Brooks Hyperion may release before that date, but I've also seen after. What about HOKA's rumored shoe that I assume won't be here until after April 1.

We at LetsRun had advocated on the LetsRun podcast that one fix would be to mandate that shoes have to be on the market for a set period of time before they can be used in competition. This rule has adopted this proposal, but I am against it now at least for the first year.

The shoes have to be on market for X many days before they can be used was designed from a shoe company dropping a new shoe that was superior to anything else right before a competition. I was operating under the assumption the IAAF wasn't going to put in concrete rules on what is legal and what isn't.

If there were no concrete rules in place, if a shoe was out for 4 months in advance at least athletes from other companies would have the opportunity to decide to run it and cover up the logo or break their contract and just run in it. They would at least have the option of being in equal technology regardless of the shoe sponsor.

Now 1) with clear rules on what is allowed and what isn't allowed I'm not sure we need any time limiting window. If the shoes meet the rules, anyone can use them. Why should other shoe companies playing catchup be penalized for not having a shoe out now? It's highly unlikely the shoe they drop is superior to anything out there. World Athletics could put in some caveat if after the fact a new shoe is deemed unfair because of some unknown technology we don't know of, they could be retroactively banned. The shoe companies then would essentially be on board with 40mm, one plate, if you try and do anything crazy new it might be banned retroactively.

Getting rid of the 4 month window would address my concern #2 above and let athletes run in shoes by their sponsors which is the ideal situation.

Having said all of this, this rule is pretty good but needs to be tweaked just a little bit.

It reads like a rule strictly against the Alpha Fly. Nike will go back to the drawing board and redesign it. Other companies can’t afford to move that fast.

Basically Nike athletes had a huge advantage in 2016 with secret shoes. In 2020, they'll have that same advantage unless a) the other shoe company's move up their release dates or b) allow their athletes to puchase the Nike shoes and maybe customize the upper or black them out.

I may be mistaken but I believe the alphafly is supposed to have more than one layer of carbon fiber.

Wejo, I think you're misreading. I think the 4-months rule begins April 30. So, as long as a shoe is released by April 30, it is OK to be used provided it isn't illegal and World Athletics has deemed it so. Thus, every shoe company will rush to beat this deadline and ensure pros can use their best model in the Olympics. Would imagine Saucony et al will react accordingly.

Everyone seems to be focussed on the marathon, but this new rule will have a huge impact on the outdoor track season.

How's it an advantage to Nike when the rules explicitly ban their upcoming prototype that they've been testing extensively and advertising (Kipchoge/Vienna)? They've to come up with an entirely new product now.

Something like this happened 50 years ago in the pole vault. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletics_at_the_1972_Summer_Olympics_%E2%80%93_Men%27s_pole_vault

So what does this mean for athletes who wear custom spikes--i.e. spike plates that aren't available to the general public?

nah wrote:

How's it an advantage to Nike when the rules explicitly ban their upcoming prototype that they've been testing extensively and advertising (Kipchoge/Vienna)? They've to come up with an entirely new product now.

It's more an advantage to Nike athletes than it is an advantage to Nike the company, simply because of the availability rule. It's not World Athletics' job to protect Nike's research investments and financial interests