Nike and other shoe companies have people sitting in a room everyday thinking shit up on how to make a faster shoe now. If anyone thinks stack height is going to limit the evolution of shoes they’re crazy. It may slow them down for a bit because they have to go another direction but the shoe improvements are going to be flying in the next 5-10 years. Nike opened the door and made everyone realize how much better a shoe could be for running and that they could make bank on it. That isn’t going away no matter what the stack height limit is.

Limiting stack height doesn't prevent you limiting other things.

I'm not sure where our disconnect is with that. Are people taking the position? Did something I say read that way?

Do you have anything to add to the discussion or are you just gain saying what others say? Apparently we might get an indication from the investigation at the end of the month. So I'd guess some decisions have been made and we are just chatting until that happens.

The counter argument is that the USGA's obsession with par. Who cares if a tournament is won by par or -20 under par??? Well I guess the USGA so they limited the drivers face, the ball, the shaft, the whatever....but again that was stupid because physics will be the natural limit because a human can only swing a club so fast. The only real reason that the USGA can argue their position is that its cost prohibited to change the golf courses themselves. Running doesn't have a course problem.

So it really is just a matter of style. If you want running regulated I guess you like slower times in general.

I think the USGA and the R&A have different agendas. The USGA has always wanted the US Open to be played roughly par. I agree with you, and couldn't care less about that. The R&A cares more about the required changes to golf courses, and how golf courses were just getting eaten up by the top pro's who could drive the ball 350+ yards. They were turning what were previously tough courses into jokes. I can sympathize with this a bit, as I've seen what they've had to do to courses like Pebble Beach to get it to stay a challenge.

That said, I do not support the same type of regulation for running. I think that Nike's current advantage is short-lived, as evidenced by the fact that Adidas (and likely almost everyone else) already has a shoe in development to compete with the Vaporfly and the Alphafly. I don't buy into the argument that equipment that gives an advantage somehow detracts from the sport or the individual's performance. It's just the nature of sport and technology. It's a bit naive to think that this is the first time in the history of running that shoes have made a performance difference. Why don't we go back to pre-foam shoes, or leather sandals, or barefoot running? Why not dirt tracks, or crushed marble? Why do we have starting blocks?

I agree but........IMO the answer to regulating shoes....and I think the panic button was hit too early on the VF...... is over energy return.

The vaporfly is the fist shoe to come close to or hit the 100% mark of energy return (it had not gone over 100%). In other words it returns the energy that the runner put in his foot strike to begin with. Or in better terms....the shoe isn't holding the runner back. Vaporflys have demonstrated that the shoes that came before it didn't come close to this, were crap, and were holding the runner back.

If a shoe is found to return more than 100% then the shoe is doing the work not the runner and I can see them being regulated....like the head of a driver or a golf ball. If a shoe or golf ball absorbs the energy put into it by the runner/player and doesn't return the energy then the runner/player effort is being wasted and his ability are being held back by something artificial.

The takeaway isn’t ban the shoes. The takeaway is that, since time immemorial, shoe companies have been marketing their shoes as “faster” or “high tech” or “new and improved” but that has been complete BS.

There were like three good shoes (Adios, Luna Racer, etc) and now the new Nike has changed the equation. Other shoe companies have a lot of explaining to do IMO.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

The vaporfly is nowhere near 100% energy return. It’s closer to 70%.

Its funny how all stone carved wisdom is revised

Back in my day race tyres were hard and skinny, bikes were light and trisuits were short, helmets long, and we swam with bent arms and loaded on carbs....and elite marathon shoes were flat as a slice of bread.... at least the gatorade and coke stayed sweet

The USGA tries to make whatever course they have that year the hardest on the tour that year...and good lord are they good at it. To the point that the US Open can suck a lot. The conditions of that course will never be remotely similar before or after the USGA.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Historically, I'd agree. However, I think they've heard the criticism and are dialing it back a bit I'm a Norcal local so I've had the opportunity to go to the Pebble Beach Pro Am several times, as well as the US Open there last summer. If I look at the condition of Pebble Beach for the US Open last June as compared to how it's set up for the Pro-Am in Feb, it was a night and day difference. However, I didn't hear anyone complaining that it was set up too hard or unfairly. I think the s&*%show at Chambers Bay a few years back really taught them a lesson.

Chambers Bay was pretty freakin wild.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Another exemple of sport regulation :

https://www.instagram.com/p/B70lMa3lEbj/

Clearly UCI is doing a better job than IAAF

Mustache doping!

Surely this can't be Adidas answer to vaporfly?

I hear that the proto was 50mm but the below is priced at £180 so expect there to be another shoe with bigger stack at around £220 mark.

https://www.t3.com/...ero-pro-announcement

Or do we think the Adizero Pro is there Olympic marathon shoe?

The Adizero Pro has been in use for a while now, or for the last year roughly, in major marathons in the specifications you see it in that press release. Adidas just finally announced it will be on sale and gave out some of the details. The "thicker midsole" adidas at the beginning of this thread popped up in January of this year.

Anyone proof read things before they publish anymore?

"used by Haile Gebrselassie to shattered his own marathon world record in 2008"

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808 > NYC > PDX > YVR
2024 Races: Taupo

A photo from Rolows 13, of the "Adidas Adizero Pro" :

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8e3C0lnm_Z/

Does not seems very high stack. A bit like Carbon Rocket ?

  
From Adidas IG, the "Adidas Adizero Pro" official picture and availability date :

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8dtJBjI20K/

Launch 1st April (not a joke ?!)

For the picture, click to the right.... it is not a "thick midsole", indeed.

Slightly thinner than the Adios.

An article (in spanish :-) about the Adizero Pro :

https://www.runnersworld.com/...s-running-opiniones/

with price, weight, drop, ...

And then it's not going to be available in all retailers until 1 June. Your LRS may or may not have availability until June 1st.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Modelo: adizero Pro
Drop: 8,5 milímetros
Peso: 235 gramos
Fecha de lanzamiento: 1 de abril de 2020 en tiendas especializadas
Fecha de venta general: 15 de mayo de 2020
Precio: 180 euros.

Yes, apparently the "lanzamiento" (launch) is Olympic compatible, but the "venta general" (general availability) is 6 weeks later, or more.


They are not very light, neither very cushioned probably, but look large and stable. And look great.

When I checked the B2B site we didn't have availability until 1 June. We emailed the rep and were told we could probably order 1 pair to arrive between the launch date and June 1.

We've already had numerous asks for the shoe though. I suspect the launch of it will go well enough for Adidas

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

I thought that the rule was that the shoe had to be commercially available for anyone to buy, 4 months before the games, in order for sponsored athletes to be able to use the shoe at the games

If general release is 6 weeks later, doesn't that mean they aren't available for everyone to buy and thus aren't legal for the Olympic games?

People here have been speculating about the details of that ruling. My guess is that Adidas are big enough that they have checked exactly what they need to do. If you just had the ruling to refer to you might not do it the way Adidas, and others, are choosing to. It would seem risky. But since the limited release is the only one done before the specified date, 30 April 2020, you'd have to assume they've checked and that is what they need to do.

If you want the exact text it's section 5.2 here. But since 'first release' and 'available for purchase by any athlete ...' is a little open to interpretation it's not completely clear.

In reality I think the important thing to world athletics is that they have a chance to vet shoes before competition. As enthusiasts we focus on the date we can get them because we want them. If you were in charge of manufacturing a product that had to be ok'd by a governing body you might want to delay as much ramping up of production as you could while you waited for the ok. It's also all happening pretty quickly so maybe there is some leeway because of that.