Marathon man refuses to put boot into new shoe

PAUL POLLOCK wore Nike Vaporflys in running his terrific time in the Valencia marathon, and sees no difficulty in wearing a shoe that is coming to dominate the top end of long-distance running.

The shoes have proven controversial. Fionnuala McCormack, who will be a teammate of Pollock’s in Tokyo and will compete in the women’s marathon, recently criticised World Athletics, calling them ‘weak’ for permitting the use of the shoe.

However, a study last year found that of the 36 podium places available at the world’s big six marathons – counting men’s and women’s races – 31 went to runners wearing Vaporflys (right).

They deploy technology that includes carbon plates, as well as a thicker and lighter foam. Regulations have been introduced to try and police the engineering of running shoes in future, while prototypes can no longer be worn in races: shoes must be available on the market for at least four months before being worn in a race.

‘Valencia was the first time

I’d ever worn them. I wore them for one kilometre the week before,’ Pollock explains with a laugh. ‘I wasn’t that much of a believer in them before, but I would say they probably do have an effect. How big an effect, I don’t know.

‘I’m definitely of the view that there a lot of other runners wearing them and if I was the first or second person to wear them, I’d be more questioning.

‘But there are hundreds if not thousands of runners around the world wearing them, and I don’t really see an issue in that.

‘Most companies have their carbon-plated shoes coming out, and I don’t think it’s even a dead certainty Nike have the best or the fastest one, but at the minute they’ve got the publicity and it’s what runners are wearing.’