Before his first appearance in the Eugene Diamond League season in May this year, English athlete Kelly Hodgkinson made his annual visit to the headquarters of his sponsor Nike in the US state of Oregon.
Like many Nike-affiliated athletes, Kelly Hodgkinson has been instrumental in the recent evolution of spikes, giving her feedback on how she feels in them and whether they work. Are there or not?
She was on the British team with teammate Georgia Bell and coach Trevor Painter when the shoe specialist unveiled its latest prototype.
Painter recalled: ‘Everybody in the room when they took them (the shoes) out, they all said at the same time what nonsense it was. They are like high-heeled shoes, very thin at the back. Like from the movie ‘Back to the Future’. They are very strange, but when they come out in the next few years, they will probably set the world on fire.’
Whether or not this particular revolutionary design comes to fruition remains to be seen, but this race of shoe innovation shows no signs of slowing down. With the continued innovation of footwear as track technology improves, many records are expected to be broken at the Paris Olympics, as they have been during various events in recent years.
Paris Olympics Kelly Hodgkinson, a strong and favorite gold medal contender in the 800m, will wear the latest model of Nike’s mid-distance Air Zoom Victory Super Spikes shoe, developed from the prototype first worn at the 2019 World Championships. have gone and those later covid epidemic It was then presented to the public.
The combination of carbon fiber plates and high-rebound foam proved to be decisive.
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For a period in the beginning, elite athletes remained silent about it, unwilling to attribute their success and, on many occasions, the sudden improvement in their performance to their shoes. This reluctance has now largely disappeared and has been replaced by a widespread recognition that in recent years, footwear technology How much has it helped athletes run faster?
Painter is very clear about this and has no doubt that it has been instrumental in the career of his wife Jenny Meadows, who tops the British all-time 800m list after besting six events in the past three years. It is ranked 10th.
He said of this: ‘Without this advancement in technology you wouldn’t see the times we’re having. I feel sorry for the players who have been left behind in the past because they didn’t have those boots. What could they actually do if they could use those shoes too?’
It’s now impossible to imagine any high-level athlete not wearing the latest super spikes, regardless of their personal feelings on the matter. After breaking the 400m hurdles world record at the Tokyo Olympics, Norway’s Karsten Warholm took aim at arch-rival Roy Benjamin’s Nike spikes, saying: ‘If you put trampolines (in shoes), I think it’s wrong. And I think it gives us less confidence in our game.’
Warhom recently admitted to The Guardian that he was ‘the biggest hypocrite in the whole world who was forced to adopt technology and now wears weird Puma spikes with a toe sticking out of the end of the shoe. The flap happens.’
After comments that it looked like a bottle opener, Warholm posted a hilarious video on social media of him using the shoe to open a beer bottle.
If athletes wear shoes on their feet that accelerate them, the track they step on will be designed to do exactly that. At the Tokyo Games three years ago, the reaction of the athletes immediately after the competition was similar.
Warholm said: ‘This track is amazing.’ Benjamin said: ‘It’s a phenomenal track.’ Sydney McLaughlin, the women’s 400m hurdles world record holder, said of the track, ‘You can feel the difference.’
A Tokyo-like track has also been built in Paris, designed by Mondo. Italian manufacturers Mondo have been building every Olympic track since 1976. They claimed that the Tokyo track provided a one to two percent improvement over previous models. Mondo believes that more improvements have been made in the latest version in Paris.
Made from 50 percent recycled materials, the track features a solid layer of rubber resting on top of a sub-surface with honeycomb-like cells that absorb force and return energy back to the foot.
Nike’s Super Spike Shoes Help Break Athletics Records (Nike)
As all the leading manufacturers are involved with the big money associated with the technology of the shoe, the cost is also huge, with the Paris track estimated to cost around £2 million.
Such a high cost was beyond the reach of Birmingham City Council, who decided not to install the top-of-the-range track option from their chosen manufacturer, Beynon, and redevelop Alexander Stadium for the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Instead, a cheaper, more flexible, model was developed.
After competing in this year’s Diamond League, Jamaican 100m runner Yohan Black said, ‘The track was not fast. I didn’t feel the bounce that I usually get.’
This is not expected to happen in the French capital, Paris, where the local organizing committee has spared no expense in building a faster track than ever before at these Olympics.
While all this external help is useful, there is also personal preference. While sympathizing with previous generations who didn’t have access to such external support, Painter believes that such ‘creativity’ creates a fascination for sport.
World Athletics Sebco, president of the US, has previously admitted to feeling ‘genuinely confused’ about technological progress. He says he ‘inherently doesn’t want to stifle innovation.’
Over the coming week, the world will see how much this technology is changing the historical parameters of the game.
#hightech #shoes #modern #tracks #changing #athletics
2024-08-03 02:41:59
