Skip to content
RichseenAtlasAtlasSign in

Carbon-plated road racing shoe

technology

From about 2017 a new class of road racing shoe combined a thick, highly resilient foam midsole with a stiff curved plate embedded in it. Independent testing reported running-economy improvements of a few percent, and marathon times at the elite end fell sharply and simultaneously across every fast course, which is the signature of a technology change rather than of a generation of athletes. World Athletics responded on 31 January 2020 with a rule rather than a ban: a road shoe may have a midsole no thicker than 40 mm and no more than one rigid plate, and from 30 April 2020 any shoe worn in competition must have been available at retail for at least four months, which ended the use of one-off prototypes. This matters to any comparison between courses or eras, because it means a time run in 2015 and a time run in 2025 are not measurements of the same thing.

A technology is not a place. Drawing it on a map would assert something about the world that no stored fact supports.

Read in · 1

Evidence · 1
Timeline

No dated observations are stored for this object. Atlas shows what was observed and when — it does not infer a history.

Connections · 2
Assembled narrative · 1

Assembled from 30 blocks · 1 evidence · 19 related

  1. Story
  2. From about 2017 a new class of road racing shoe combined a thick, highly resilient foam midsole with a stiff curved plate embedded in it. Independent testing reported running-economy improvements of a few percent, and marathon times at the elite end fell sharply and simultaneously across every fast course, which is the signature of a technology change rather than of a generation of athletes. World Athletics responded on 31 January 2020 with a rule rather than a ban: a road shoe may have a midsole no thicker than 40 mm and no more than one rigid plate, and from 30 April 2020 any shoe worn in competition must have been available at retail for at least four months, which ended the use of one-off prototypes. This matters to any comparison between courses or eras, because it means a time run in 2015 and a time run in 2025 are not measurements of the same thing.
  3. Knowledge
  4. The marathon distance (42.195 km / 26 miles 385 yards)
  5. Carbon-plated road racing shoe
  6. World Athletics
  7. Connections
  8. The marathon distance (42.195 km / 26 miles 385 yards)
  9. World Athletics
  10. World Athletics regulates the racing shoe
  11. The first sub-two-hour marathon in a record-eligible race
  12. Calibrated bicycle course measurement
  13. The 1908 Olympic marathon fixes 26 miles 385 yards
  14. Carbon-plated road racing shoe
  15. World Athletics
  16. The 1908 Olympic marathon fixes 26 miles 385 yards
  17. The 1908 distance becomes the world standard
  18. Boston lengthens its course and moves the start to Hopkinton
  19. Kelvin Kiptum runs 2:00:35 in Chicago
  20. Ruth Chepngetich runs 2:09:56 in Chicago
  21. Tigst Assefa sets a women-only world record in London
  22. The first sub-two-hour marathon in a record-eligible race
  23. Record-eligible road course criteria
  24. Carbon-plated road racing shoe
  25. The marathon distance (42.195 km / 26 miles 385 yards)
  26. The international federation is founded
  27. The 1908 distance becomes the world standard
  28. World Athletics regulates the racing shoe
  29. Evidence
  30. From 31 January 2020 a road competition shoe may have a midsole no thicker than 40 mm and no more than one rigid plate, and from 30 April 2020 any shoe used in competition must have been available at retail for at least four months. V55 verification basis: worldathletics.org was refused by this session's egress proxy; read only through attributed search summaries of the press release.
Close the narrative
Observed changes · 0

No public Signals are attached to this object. Signals show what changed and when it was observed — never a direction or a rank.

Actions

Read the assembled narrativeContinue in StudioOpen TwinTwin does not start a decision from this kind of object.ShareSaveSaved objects are part of the authenticated projection, which is declared and not yet built.

/atlas?object=TECH_CARBON_PLATED_RACING_SHOE&experience=TECH_CARBON_PLATED_RACING_SHOE