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

First to market but got squashed name seems a little too close

sbeefyk2 wrote:

Anyways, non-Nike runners can easily buy the Nike shoes.

And potentially lose their sponsorship. Canada's Reid Coolsaet let his New Balance contract go at the end of the year so he can race in the shoes.

Researcher (and Olympian) Shalaya Kipp told us other shoe companies should let their athletes race in them if their own internal testing shoes they can't compete, but that doesn't mean they will allow it.

Yes, they can buy them just like an Amazon emploee can go into work and tell Jeff Bezos he's a bum for having an affair. But their may be serious consequences if they do.

v

What's going on with the spikes? I thought the ruling was no carbon plates at all were allowed in spikes?

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.

What is OnCloud?

Nike won't stop until they ruin the sport for good. Take a look at the current F1 championship, that's the future of road running.

F@ck Nike. I'm never buying one of their products again, even if they make my favorite trail shoe. F@ck them.

These shoes are a monstrosity

They should be banned immediately.

May as well be racing on bikes at this point

I'm happy to see this info all release "officially" so the LRC community can loose it's collective minds.

Regardless of what you think of Nike as a company you cannot deny that they have out innovated, out researched and out designed the competition. They are a world-class product company that knows how to develop product. Very obviously the best in the industry. I realize they do have questionable moral practices around some of the training groups (i.e. Oregon Project, etc) but that is a separate issue than product.

All other running shoes companies were caught flatfooted and have had years now to innovate. A handful have barely reached the bar of the 4%/Next% by basically copying the Nike design in their midsoles and foam techs.

This isn't about Nike b being "evil"...it's about other companies being behind, due to their own investment in product development.

Nike is far beyond their competition as far as product. Nike athletes do have an advantage bt it's not their fault. The choose the right company to run for, or their were lucky enough to be chosen by Nike. Athletes with other sponsorships...that is their own problem for not pushing their brands to develop product.

Don't punish a design/product leader for doing a good job.

Feel sorry for all the other companies for not having a clue.

Have fun LRC...loose your internet message board minds.

HolyPrick wrote:

So they removed additional plates and reduced the stack height. These are not really "alphaflys" anymore then. They respect the ruling. There just the new nike shoe. Good for them. Don't understand the fuss.

Interesting that they announce it so soon after the ruling. They must have some good IAAF connections at nike (obviously)

The IAAF president has worked for Nike for 30 years and has a building in the Nike campus named after him.

Rojo we need another emergency podcast so you can rant! It's unbelievable that Nike can manage to adjust the shoes to be legal over the course of a week (assuming they weren't already legal) while the other brands are years behind at this point. You should really start blaming the other brands for being incompetent.

Wildhorse wrote:

Nike won't stop until they ruin the sport for good. Take a look at the current F1 championship, that's the future of road running.

F@ck Nike. I'm never buying one of their products again, even if they make my favorite trail shoe. F@ck them.

You wish that the future of road running looks like F1.

Literally 10s of millions of fans tune in to watch F1, drivers are paid more than nearly every other sportsman, and comparitively no-one watches road running races.

tarckstar wrote:

Skechers will continue to surprise.

Let me fix that for you.

Skechers will continue to steal.

They literally bring nothing new to the table and have numerous lawsuits against them for blatantly stealing or copying many other companies innovations. They have publicly stated that this is their business model!?!?

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.

Brooks has studied the carbon fiber plate in shoes since the 80s. They definitely got caught flat footed.

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.

Nike is a massive apparel conglomerate with a tiny and massively-subsidized running division. Brooks and Saucony are running-specific brands and simply don't have the revenue to justify a massive R&D operation.

HOKA is now Dockers-owned, so they likely have some extra cash to play with. Adidas and New Balance are in a similar market position to Nike, just on a smaller scale.

In any case, the competition shoe category is a loss-leader for all of these brands. The Vaporfly project has been terrific marketing for Nike's running division, but it almost certainly isn't making them much profit.

The issue is whether Nike's dominance of the competition category will box out other brands. This is only really a "problem" for the tiny percentage of people who follow professional running.

I expect what this will do is create an opening for non-shoe athlete sponsorship. For example, would Run Gum support an elite training group and let the athletes run in whichever shoe is most competitive? Maybe. There are increasingly more vendors in the space who could support athletes and wouldn't place gear restrictions on them that could hurt their performance.

not sure wrote:

Any chance the airbags wouldn't be legal under this part of the WA ruling?:

"Where World Athletics has reason to believe that a type of shoe or specific technology may not be compliant with the rules or the spirit of the rules, it may submit the shoe or technology for study and may prohibit the use of the shoe or technology while it is under examination."

Wishful thinking, maybe.

This is more where I'm coming from.

Like, those air pods are clearly acting as springs. That's literally what they're there for, which is a totally different rule.

And with this:

Please. It has run wild. This needs to stop.

andicamp wrote:

What's going on with the spikes? I thought the ruling was no carbon plates at all were allowed in spikes?

IIRC it's one plate + a second one that can only be used for attaching pins.

Will these be worn in the US Trials?

Well, seems like they adjusted the shoe to meet the rules. Too bad they didn't adjust the look. I don't think I could wear even the tempos, I hope this doesn't mean this is the only racing shoe choice from Nike from this point on.. because I'm not wearing those.

Ackley wrote:

Will these be worn in the US Trials?

Yes