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“Our goal has always been to be the most boutique sports brand in the world — we always err on the side of few, bigger, better,” said Kevin Fitzpatrick, the vice president for running. “We want to make sure that we have the resources to really understand the athlete and, as importantly, their body, and biomechanics. That allows us to spend a lot more time with Femke, a lot more time with Sydney versus having to spread our time over hundreds of athletes. Our original hypothesis… going back to 2016… was each individual is so different that we need individually customised track spikes.”
New Balance also very deliberately focused on its track spikes at a time when much of the industry was ploughing huge resources into the road shoes. “We were the first brand that actually put carbon fibre directly in contact with the track surface,” says Fitzpatrick, who says that athletes are “crushing records” from High School upwards. “We’re also constantly looking at how we tweak the chemical make-up of those forms… to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to introduce as much energy return at the same time that we’re reducing weight.”
Lord Coe, the president of World Athletics, says the governing body will continue to monitor designs but encourage technical progress, even if the world records from his generations continue to be rearranged. “I don’t think an international federation, or any organisation over civilisation, is best served by strangling technology,” he said. “If we get really fast times in the stadium, I would welcome that.”
Nike gold medals so far
Men
1500m Cole Hocker: Victory 2
10,000m Joshua Cheptegei: Dragonfly 2
3,000m steeplechase Soufiane El Bakkali: Dragonfly 2
Women
800m Keely Hodgkinson: Victory 2
5,000m Beatrice Chebet: Victory 2
3,000m steeplechase Winfred Yavi: Dragonfly 2
Nike possible medals to come
Men
5,000m Jakob Ingebrigtsen (favourite): Dragonfly 2 (Ingebrigtsen wears Victory 2s for the 1500m)
800m Djamel Sedjati (favourite): Dragonfly 2
Women
1500m Faith Kipyegon (favourite): Victory 2
10,000m (favourite) Beatrice Chebet: Victory 2
