Coe seeks to allay fears over technology

THE ferocious pace of advances in shoe technology will not wreck hopes of a level playing field on the track, World Athletics president Sebastian Coe insists.

Eliud Kipchoge’s groundbreaking marathon inside two hours brought further calls to cap the technology developed by Nike with even athletes such as Laura Muir under scrutiny because of the design and impact of their spikes.

The obliteration of the world half- marathon record by Kenya’s Kibiwott Kandi in Poland last month came in adidas shoes, suggesting the wars between the leading players are heating up.

Amid criticism of World Athletics over their perceived failure to police changes, even through their own equipment approval process, Coe says fans of the sport should not fear the latest wave of changes will ruin chances of fair play.

“We shouldn’t be in the business of trying to suffocate innovation,” the two- time Olympic champion said. “It is important. But there is also that balance between the innovation traded off against our rules codes. And it’s a delicate balance.

“And look, we’ve come to this relatively late in terms of putting systems and structures around it. We have been able to identify some pressure points.

“It’s not really any longer about closing the stable door. We’ve sort of been chasing the horse around the paddock a little bit on this. But we do now have an ability to check these shoes in the way that we didn’t before. There’s nothing new about prototypes. But what is new is they’re now being checked and cleared.”