COULD FLO-JO’S RECORD FINALLY BE OVERTAKEN?
34 years on, ‘super spikes’ and a high tech track are producing faster times
IT WAS a time that defied belief, a performance few in athletics ever believed was legitimate, but after a 34-year wait, there’s a chance Florence Griffith-Joyner’s 100metres world record of 10.49seconds could finally be under threat.
The women’s 100m final at the World Championships tonight should see two of female sprinting’s all-time greats square off, as Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah takes on defending world champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce. Between them, the Jamaicans have run three of the top five times in history in the past year, and on this same track last August, Thompson-Herah blazed to the line in 10.54.
It was a run that could have broken the world record if there had been a stronger tailwind – it was 0.9 metres per second, well ithin the allowable limit of 2.0m/s wind asistance.
But why is this generation edging closer to marks that were so long deemed unattainable? The answer lies in new technology. Track surfaces have improved substantially since Flo-Jo ran her record in 1988, and the surface here at Hayward Field, manufactured by Beynon, is comprised of two layers of polyurethane rubber which combine to offer excellent energy return.
The bigger breakthrough has come in footwear. Road running records have been smashed to pieces in recent years due to ‘super shoes’ which contain hyper-responsive, lightweight foams, with stiff plates embedded in their midsoles. Now, that technology is having a game-changing effect on the track.
How much time are super spikes worth to a 100m sprinter? ‘A random guess, probably 0.07 to 0.10,’ says Lance Brauman, who coaches a host of sprint champions such as Noah Lyles and Shaunae Miller-Uibo.
Brauman noticed key technical differences in his athletes since the arrival of super spikes. ‘The secret to sprinting is short ground times, high stride frequency, long stride length, and the shoe benefits two or three of those,’ he says. ‘It’s putting your foot in a better position to hit the ground, react off it and get the knee back to the front side faster. It decreases the amount of vibration going up the leg and enables the muscle to not fatigue as fast.’
British 100m champion Daryll Neita believes there is ‘definitely a nice impact’ from the top-of-theline Adidas spike she uses, but she believes any advantage depends on ‘people’s technique, the way they come out of the blocks, their max velocity’.
Thompson-Herah runs in Puma’s Evospeed Naio Nitro Elite, while Fraser-Pryce runs in Nike’s Air Zoom Maxfly. Both shoes have versions that retail for more than £200 per pair.
At 34, Fraser-Pryce ran her lifetime best of 10.60 last year, and when Neita looks at her races she can ‘see someone whose technique has changed quite significantly’.
‘You could say her performances are maybe the spike, but she looks technically very clean. She’s put in a lot of work to make improvements.’
So how does it work? To get an insight, The Mail on Sunday visited an Adidas hub, where athletes like Miller-Uibo and 110m hurdles world champion Grant Holloway have tested prototypes.
‘The new foams are much more responsive, they’re lighter, so naturally you’re going to get something more propulsive,’ says Spencer Nel, head of global sports marketing for Adidas running. ‘It’s small margins, but that ultimately means bigger gains.’
Rules dictate sprint spikes can’t have soles thicker than 20mm; the Adizero Prime SP2 is 18mm, much thicker than midsoles common in sprint spikes prior to 2019.
There is no published data on the difference the spikes made to ground contact time and stride length, but stories passed around the sprint world suggests it’s substantial. ‘They make a difference,’ Fabian Schweizer, director of athlete services for Adidas, says with a knowing smile. ‘It’s about joining the materials and having high energy return.
‘It’s not just contact time – it’s stride length and speed.’
All the major shoe firms are already developing new versions of the super shoes.
‘You have to wait a couple more years,’ says Schweizer. ‘What we’re working on is pretty amazing.’
Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith will be hoping to contest this evening’s showpiece 100m final, too.
Assuming nothing untowards happens to the favourites in the heats or semi-finals, it promises to be pretty amazing, too.