A very very sad day for running.
We can no longer quantify records or great performances.
A very very sad day for running.
We can no longer quantify records or great performances.
Bio Dome wrote:
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
Also with the Clap Skate at Nagano 1998,. And the dowel grip in gymnastics however long ago that came in. Compound bows in Archery. Nutrition in the marathon.
Technology marches on.
What is fair? Whatever the rules say.
Of course you hadn’t. You’re too busy yelling at cloud.
Maybe a great day for Nike but I wonder how Kipchoge feels about the ban.
https://www.believeintherun.com/2020/01/31/world-athletics-nike-alphafly-ban/
Decent write up from knowledgeable crew regarding shoes. Nike rules
rojo actually wrote this ridiculous thing:
non-Nike company's
Rojo goes home devastated because his English bachelors degree brain can't understand the shoe isn't a cheating shoe and the integrity of 2016 Olympics were not compromised. Glad to see science > English major's opinions.
This is still a funny April Fools joke to think the shoe should be considered doping. Honestly, I'd laugh in Rojo's face and humiliate him publicly. You have to be dumber than a box of rocks to believe the shoe is equivalent to doping. Honestly, I'd bet my life that a box of rocks can beat people who think the shoe is equivalent to doping at chess.
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.
Totally agree that the entire purpose of professional running is not to sell shoes.
When sport exists primarily to make money for equipment provider businesses, its not sport anymore, but a huge marketing stunt/commercial.
There is a major problem in a sport when the businesses that supply equipment to that sport have so much influence that their products force the sport to modify its rules so as to accommodate those products.
Purity McPhair wrote:
Ideally, a bunch of competitors line up, and the best competitor wins. Shoes should be an afterthought. And the beauty of it is that times a competitor runs today can be compared with times run 50 years in the past or future (or 1000 years for that matter), if we stick to a reasonable set of rules about equipment.
But when people do battle in races, they should be stripped down to basics, all possible equipment advantages stripped away. Just you, your heart and lungs and guts, against your opponents'.
Agree that running should primarily be about the runners and not the equipment. One thing I used to like about road racing was that you could line up near or sometimes next to a top pro, and dream about/try to beat them head to head in the race.
There are few/zero opportunities to do that in any other sport. And when pros have access to special equipment you can't have, the dream is tainted.
Most fans of sport do not pay much attention to what brand of or type of shoes the athletes are wearing. Sorry Nike, adidas, etc. Do you know what brand of shoes Tom Brady wears? What brand and model did Larry Bird wear? What brands of shoes were used to set the current US men's road 10k record? What brand did Bruce Jenner wear in the 1976 Olympic games? What brand of shoes did Steve Scott wear when he set an American mile record that stood for 25 years? (hint- the answers include six different shoe brands...)
Many runners, even the pros, train to improve and compete against themselves and the clock. Even if you do not 'win' you can set a pr. I long ago realized that the newer shoes coming out might help me run a little faster. In order to know if my improvements, or declines, are me and not the shoes I occasionally do time trials on a track wearing old shoes. I run these wearing Onisuka Tiger Spartan B spikes, adidas Shimantos, adidas RATS racers, Nike Mariahs and also barefoot.
I know with certainty that I am running slower times because of me, not the shoes.
Nike's greed has put us in a sad state. A lot of people jump on the bandwagon of "innovation with equipment is an essential part of all sports". It's a load of B.S., at least as applied to track/roads/XC. It's not only not true - it's actually the opposite of true. Competitive running is about different athletes over the years competing in what are essentially the same conditions, trying to cover the same distance as fast as possible. We don't innovate with the distances themselves; the more popular events may change from a 10k to a half-marathon or whatever, but we don't "innovate" the definition of a kilometer or a mile. The conditions stay the same over time; some days are hot, some cold, but over time it roughly evens out. And until recently, intentionally or not, equipment was also a negligible factor. If you ran track or XC, you ran in a singlet, shorts, and a pair of spikes - the exact details didn't matter. If you ran a road race, you ran in racing flats. Individuals may have had favorite shoes, but that was more based on comfort or aesthetics. The specific details didn't matter; you just needed something relatively lightweight and relatively comfortable; any brand would suffice.
The one area of innovation over the years has been related to training methods (including diet). Improved training explains why a decent college athlete of today can destroy the times of all the Olympic champions up to probably 1948 or even later; not the shoes. And that, my friends, is the essence of competitive running (ideally): we compete at the same distances in the same conditions, with the same equipment, past, present, and future, but we try to make advances by finding ways to better train ourselves than those who came before.
How obvious does it have to be that the new shoes are a major issue? For all the cosmetic changes in shoes over the decades, when else was there a time when people actually even jokingly attributed performance improvements to the shoes, not the athletes?
Pity the pro runners, giving their lives to this sport, who are not allowed to wear the fastest shoe because they are not sponsored by Nike. We'll see what companies really stand up for the sport and the athletes when they let their runners run in Vaporflys (or whatever) even though they are sponsored by another shoe company. Are these other companies willing to sacrifice the performance of their athletes this olympic cycle? Boo for them if so!
Here's the UCI scanning a bike for internal motors (yes, that's a thing). This isn't difficult, and with everyone watching everyone anymore, it would take five seconds to see if someone winning or placing or whatever is wearing 'illegal' shoes. Ya'll are ridiculous.
https://www.facebook.com/tinkoffsport/videos/822469007855073/
RRRun2Fly wrote:
Pity the pro runners, giving their lives to this sport, who are not allowed to wear the fastest shoe because they are not sponsored by Nike. We'll see what companies really stand up for the sport and the athletes when they let their runners run in Vaporflys (or whatever) even though they are sponsored by another shoe company. Are these other companies willing to sacrifice the performance of their athletes this olympic cycle? Boo for them if so!
That seems like a really attractive scenario for other shoe companies: they get to pay their athletes to advertise Nike's shoes. Now that's a sound business plan!
Yeah no innovation in shoes for training or competition at all. The shoes Usain Bolt or Michael Johnson wore were almost exactly the same as Jesse Owens. Just like at some trainers from the 60’s and they look just like today’s shoes. And no innovations in tracks either obviously. Dirt and cinders are easily as fast as the track from the 91 world championships in Tokyo or London or Beijing. Pole vault poles aren’t any better than steel or bamboo either. It’s all just differences in training.
The alternative is to sponsor athletes and then make them race poorly? Surely there are other business models - e.g. the best racing shoe may well not be the best training shoe. And there are a lot more training shoes sold. Eventually maybe the competition will create some choices, but for now it doesn't seem a good thing for non-nike runners or for the sport.
U know nothing jon snow wrote:
Yeah no innovation in shoes for training or competition at all. The shoes Usain Bolt or Michael Johnson wore were almost exactly the same as Jesse Owens. Just like at some trainers from the 60’s and they look just like today’s shoes. And no innovations in tracks either obviously. Dirt and cinders are easily as fast as the track from the 91 world championships in Tokyo or London or Beijing. Pole vault poles aren’t any better than steel or bamboo either. It’s all just differences in training.
You didn't read my earlier posts. I stated that advances in TRAINING shoes are fine and dandy. That is part of the essence of competitive running: the innovations are found in the area of training. That includes equipment such as shoes. It's only the actual competitions that ought to stay the same throughout the years. Take a sub-28 minute 10k: there are numerous ways to train a talented runner to get there. Maybe the best way is very high mileage. Maybe the best way is loads of intervals. Maybe the best way is doing all training runs with a parachute trailing behind them, or with silly-looking shoes with 50mm foam stacks on the bottom. But the actual end result - the sub-28 minute 10k - should be purely a case of an athlete with minimal, non-enhancing equipment running the same 10 kilometre distance in less than 28 of the same, 60-second-long minutes. A sub-28 10k in the year 2120 should be (and can be, if we are careful) the same thing as a sub-28 in 2020. It's not that hard to make that the case - but with the current shoes, a sub-28 10k is not what it used to be, and something is lost.
Went exactly like many of us thought it would. Prototypes banned and stack height limited.
Bummer, I wanted to see just how clownworld the shoes and the record books would get with no regulations for a few more years, but I guess we knew it was coming
It all makes no real-world difference. Kipchoge is going to crush London in regular Next% (new color) and will also win gold in Japan.
For all the shoe hysteria, I wish someone would also look at the longer term impact of the VF/Next%: most people report faster recovery, less muscle impact, and ability to train harder. This is all good for everyone, whether you are hobby runner or an elite.
Or like NASCAR, inspects the cars right after the race. I doubt anybody would have to be walking around barefoot stepping on a nail.