the doped shoes wrote:
THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:
Rojo, you've lost your mind in the shoe hysteria. Practically NOBODY was wearing a standard pair of racing flats. That is no longer a thing. Everyone has a shoe with a plate and a significant stack height/foam midsole. I'd urge you to look at Runner's World's analysis.
First of all, discussing the biggest thing since drugs (steroids, EPO, etc) that has removed the 'purity' of competitive physicality from a foot-race, which is technology's encroachment on shoe-wear, is hardly 'hysteria'.
Secondly, just jamming more foam and/or a carbon plate in a shoe will not determine its effectiveness in energy storage and return.
Lastly, RW analysis (or other probably) is probably not going to get into the specifics of what is the physics behind the specific improvements in the shoes. But post a link if you think they have an analysis of value.
No, that is not the hysteria. The hysteria is thinking Riley would fall out of the top 10 if he didn't have the advantage of his shoes. It ignores everyone else in the top 10 had plated shoes (mostly Nike Next). So it's an irrelevant point. We don't have studies on if the prototypes that are challenging the Nikes work as well. We have anecdotal evidence they're pretty damn good from the women's side and in jumps in performance from other athletes (the 50-year-old in the UK, CJ Albertson, Ward/Fauble in Boston).
So maybe the competitor brands have failed, and in testing they're waaaay off. In reality, if they've narrowed the gap from Adios --> Vaporfly by a decent margin as it appears, the idea that Riley would fall out of the top 10 is absurd even if the rest of the top 10 was wearing challenger shoes (they were NOT).