My first Publication Overtime November 2019 Merged PDF | Page 22

‘FAKE SUB-2’: KIPCHOGE’S
RECORD SHOE UNDER FIRE
Eliud Kipchoge became the first person to run a marathon in under two hours last month. But a shoe
designed to make the athlete run five per cent faster has led to questions around the ethics of his success
Words Samir Abraham
Eliud Kipchoge (in white) on course to become the first human to complete a marathon in under two
hours (Pic: PA images)
O
n 12 October, Eliud Kipchoge ran the first
ever sub-two hour marathon in Vienna, laden
in sponsorships from Nike and Ineos. The
athleticism on display was awe-inspiring.
But the conditions put on the run by sponsors and
managers mean the magnitude of the achievement
needs to be put in question.
Professor Yannis Pitsiladis, a leading scientist
in anti-doping research based at the University of
Brighton, has considered the various factors put in
place by Nike in their ‘Breaking-2’ project, and how
they led him to brand Kipchoge’s success as the “fake
sub-2”.
“The term I use, I call it the fake sub-2,” said
Pitsiladis. “And obviously I would say that because
the idea to implement a sub-2 - so to try and attempt a
sub-2 - was mine going back more than a decade.
“Looking at all the different components, like if you
go to our website, you’ll see the 11 work packages that
we have from engineering to psychology to smart
training to whatever. They didn’t do any of that.
“I would even say that the athlete
did not become better as part of
the project”
“They had a great shoe. The athlete didn’t do
anything different than he was going to do [had he not
had the shoe].
“I would even say that the athlete didn’t become
better as part of the project. In a sense that the
athlete remained the same but the shoe innovation,
and actually the sub-2 innovation of the sports rink,
allowed him to get closer to his true potential. Or, with
the shoe, [he] probably bypassed his limits.”
Of course, one of the major points of controversy
with the record attempt was the new shoe that Nike has
developed. The Nike Vaporfly NEXT% can reportedly
increase a runner’s speed by up to five per cent with
no extra training, leading people to question the use
of this new technology in sport.
The controversy is reminiscent of the full body swim
suits used in the Beijing 2008 Olympics. These suits
were banned as they were judged to give the athlete an
advantage and was referred to as ‘technology doping’.
The professor would agree with the judgement that
the shoes lead to an unfair advantage but looks more
at the issue of the availability of the shoe to all athletes,
believing that more regulations need to not just be put
in place, but actually enforced.
Pitsiladis said: “There have been complaints about
the shoe to the IAAF and so on, so athletes are not
happy. And even if I was a Nike athlete, I wouldn’t
be happy because only Eliud gets that shoe. So again,
if you look at the IAAF rules which stipulate the
universality of sport. How is this fair? How is this
appropriate?
“And in the universality of sport, not everyone can
get it. So, the rules are there, they’re just not actually
being enforced. And again, that goes in with the other
problem which is there isn’t enough sponsorship for
the athletes.”
The IAAF rule he is referencing is rule 13.2, which
states: “Any type of shoe used must be reasonably
available to all in the spirit of universality of sport.”
However, not everyone would agree with the
professor’s point of view. Overtime spoke to Lewis
Williams, an elite sportsman from the University
of Brighton, who competes for Great Britain’s U20s
triathlon team.
When asked about issues surrounding the shoe, and
the marathon in general, he said: “The record should
stand. He still had to cover the distance set out for
him, the same as other races before.
the shoes are just further developments in technology
that give an athlete the ability to push himself further.
However, it’s not necessarily the actual shoe that
should make the Sub-2 attempt questioned. Rather
what it actually represents. With it being run under
the sponsorship of Nike, along with other huge
corporations like Ineos, it can easily be seen as a
publicity stunt. Not what should have been an attempt
to further the innovations and training in sport.
The professor has been working on his own sub-2
projects since 2014, focusing on making an athlete
quicker by looking at engineering, smart training,
psychology and more. Whereas, to Pitsiladis, the Nike
project now seems increasingly like more of a publicity
stunt to sell a shoe.
Pitsiladis talks about his own project and how Nike
seemed to twist the ideas he initially came up with.
“The project as I conceived it was very much try and
clean sport from doping, so just trying to innovate.”
“So, it’s very much trying to give them alternatives
to drugs, give them innovation. Indeed, if you just
took away drugs it would have an impact on times, so
you’d need to have innovation. So that was the idea
of the project and Nike realised it’s a great process of
making money and selling a shoe, and the managers
jumped on that bandwagon.”
What should, and still could, have been a genuine
attempt at progressing the sport and making
innovations that can help improve the future of young
athletes and sport, became a publicity stunt.
The run will surely go down in history as an
achievement for Kipchoge, an athlete whose talent
cannot be questioned, but the reality of the project is
more complicated.
“Even if I was a Nike athlete, I
wouldn’t be happy because only
Eliud gets that shoe”
“Pace making was the biggest factor in the run. The
trainers were not as much of a factor as the media has
made, he would still have been running quick times.”
When asked about the development of technology he
said: “When the shoes no longer require any effort and
are doing work for you, that’s when it’s gone too far.
At the moment they are just pushing the boundaries.”
When Kipchoge first attempted the sub-two hour
marathon in 2017, he ran it in two hours and 25
seconds. In the aftermath, Nike said: “It signaled [sic]
to the world the value of chasing audacious goals, not
only for personal reasons, but in the spirit of advancing
the sport as a whole.”
From a professional’s point of view, the shoes give
an unfair advantage to the athlete and lay a grey area
over IAAF rules. But, to the more amateur athlete,
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Professor Yannis Pitsiladis (pictured) calls
Kipchoge’s run the “fake sub-2” (Pic: University of
Brighton)