By: Brayden Yin

Super shoes are a type of sneaker that have been shown to increase athletes’ running times by significant margins. One month before the largest track and field event of the season, a huge number of athletes have shattered their previous best times and set new world records.

In the spring of this year, Faith Kipyegon of Kenya broke her own time and set a world record for the women’s 1,500-meter and 5,000-meter races, and Lamecha Girma of Ethiopia set a new record with the men’s 3,000-meter steeplechase. Last Friday Kipyegon set another world record, beating her previous mile time by almost five seconds, with a time of 4 minutes 7.64 seconds. This record surprised fans, who were used to seeing records broken by tenths of a second. Why are runners so much faster all of a sudden?

A potential answer lies in the shoes that the runners are wearing. Super shoes were introduced by Nike in 2016, with the Nike Zoom Vaporfly 4%. When they were introduced, runners immediately became much faster, thanks to the energy-returning properties of the shoe and the thick outsole. Athletes wearing these shoes were so successful that World Athletics, the governing body of track and field, limited the height of the midsole of the shoe starting in 2020.

For many athletes, it is irresistible to train as well as compete in these shoes. Lindsay Flanagan, who will be running the marathon in the World Championships, said, “since I’m going to be wearing super shoes in races, I want to get a good feel for them in training. I’ve found that I can log more quality days, as well as more mileage in general, because my legs come around sooner.”

Super shoes are transformative to the future of track and field, and new evidence is being revealed every day, setting a new standard in the future of professional running.