It’s a shame Kipchoge is Mr Nike guy
IN those strides across the finish in Vienna yesterday, Eliud Kipchoge pulled off a feat of science and a feat of endurance.
The debate on a day of revelation was where on the scale of wonder did one end and the other begin? Maybe that discussion is tedious, maybe not.
Maybe, in 65 years, we will care no more about what the great Kenyan wore on his feet than we do now about Roger Bannister’s use of pacemakers in 1954.
That used to be sniffed at a little, too. Different levels of assistance, of course, and different scenarios but ultimately caveats have always fallen away in time, like boosters on a rocket to the moon.
When they do, it will show the root fact that Kipchoge covered 26.2miles in less than two hours.
A few thousand fast steps, one giant leap for mankind and all that. He was already remarkable before he did it, the winner of 12 of his 13 marathons, the holder of a ratified world record and the Olympic title.
The greatest. And now he has a frontier to his name, which is worth celebrating.
He climbed it because it was there. He showed it could be done. Like Bannister did.
And perhaps others will follow. Barely a year after Bannister broke four minutes for the mile, three men did it in the same race. But it is surely out of the question that we will see a similar rush through this wall and that is why it is necessary to return to the caveats because this is so out of sync with evolution.
Forget the pacemakers and the lasers and water carriers – accessories. But the shoes?
They are what make the playing field wonky. We already have a scenario where the Nike Vaporfly accounts for the five quickest marathon times in history, with the blurb being they could improve your running efficiency by four per cent.
The developmental Next% shoes that Kipchoge wore in Vienna were rumoured in athletics circles to bump the figure to around seven or eight per cent. Now, would Kipchoge beat all rivals if they all wore the same shoes?
Yes. But do frontiers such as times matter as much as they once did when the technology is doing quite so much of the lifting? No, not really.
And yet that is the probably the smallest reason why this remarkable run from a remarkable runner in a remarkably controlled environment needs to be kept in healthy perspective.
The biggest reason is the presence of Nike, because who, frankly, feels like cheering for them right now?
Not when there are 140 pages of a ruling into Alberto Salazar that makes you wonder what they truly bring to the table.
Of course, that is no slur on Kipchoge – he is a sporting great doing great things.
But the people who made his rocket shoes are also the ones who, in this of all months, make your stomach churn.
In time that caveat and those around Kipchoge’s footwear will fall away but it will take more than a couple of hours.