Olympic 400m hurdles champion Karsten Warholm will wear a shoe money can’t buy and designed just for him when he defends his title at the Paris Olympics next week.
The Norwegian spent time at a factory in Vietnam with his sponsor Puma to create the “Berserker,” with only a handful of the shoes created and between 10 and 12 prototypes produced, each one honed down to make it better.
It includes a spike at the front specially adapted to Warholm’s running pattern and the way he lands after taking a hurdle.
Shoe companies are investing millions of pounds in technology each year to give athletes marginal gains, with what they develop – including, eventually, the Berserker – crossing over into their consumer footwear markets.
They have to work within rules given to them by World Athletics for footwear worn by professionals, which regulates enhancements like stack height and embedded plates to ensure athletes don’t get too much of an advantage.
The development of Warholm’s shoe, a version of which is on display at Puma’s sponsor house in Paris, took around 12 months of work.
Puma’s Jose van der Veen, head of product line management, said that shoe technology can give athletes a marginal gain of between 1 to 2%.
That translates to tenths of seconds in Warholm’s discipline – the 28-year-old’s world record is 45.94 – easily enough to make a difference between gold and silver.
Shoe technology has been around in one form or another for the best part of 100 years, and even Jesse Owens benefited from some modifications to his running shoes.
But over the last few years it has accelerated rapidly, and Puma’s Head of Footwear Development Steve Langis says the leaps and bounds made over the last eight years since the retirement of Usain Bolt could have seen the Jamaican 100m world record holder potentially run even faster if he had worn today’s shoes.
However for former 100m Olympic champion Linford Christie, races are still won in the mind, not in the lab.
“I wore the LA Puma Star, and we thought that was technology,” he said.
“But I think myself, I just believe in my ability. You know, the shoes helped me to feel more confident. But I think this generation, they’re relying on the shoes. If they haven’t got the shoes, they don’t think they’re going to run fast. But they have no excuse not to run fast anymore, because they have it all.”
(Reuters)