‘Freeze it A Little Bit’ - Push to Clamp Down on ‘Supershoes’ After Sabastian Sawe’s Sub-Two-Hour Marathon

Sabastian Sawe is still generating debate over how he managed to run a marathon under two hours with the shoes he used on the day dividing opinion further.

Sawe became the first man to run an official marathon under two hours, when he clocked 1:59:30 in London last month, with Ethiopian Yomif Kejelcha finishing second in 1:59:41 in what was his debut over the 42 km race.

Interestingly, both marathoners used the same shoes, the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 ‘supershoe’ manufactured by Adidas and the company has wasted no time in showing its technological advancements and how they aided the first man to what looked impossible to human kind.

However, not everyone agrees that it was the shoes as some have argued that it was down to the training, skills and power of the athletes and not what was on their feet.

Australian long distance legend Chris Wardlaw is among those who are not fans of the ‘supershoes’ and feels the records being witnessed are not ‘genuine’ as the athletes and show makers are "distorting what the true meaning of the sport should be."

Wardlaw competed in an era when ‘supershoes’ were nonexistent, having contested the marathon for Australia at both the 1976 and 1980 Olympics, and was the head coach of the Australian athletics team at the Sydney 2000 Games.

With shoemakers Adidas, Nike, ASICS, On, Puma and Hoka investing billions to churn out the best shoes to lead their athletes to success, the Australian legend feels it is time to split the world records into pre-super shoes and post-super shoes categories.

"And all the training over many, many years ... it's always been this fundamental competition with gravity. How can you train yourself so that you can get to 26 miles, 385 yards in one piece, and train yourself to even run home hard? [Australian marathon legend] Robert de Castella won his world championship [in Helsinki in 1983] by really running brutally fast over the last five to six kilometres, and that training was always against gravity,” Wardlaw told Wide World of Sports.

"Now what's happened with the technology is that it's actually said, 'Oh, well what about gravity? It's not so important. Let's make it very springy and let's defeat gravity'. And they have to some extent, and all power to the shoe companies. They've done it. But to me, it distorts what the true meaning of the sport should be.

"I don't think we really know what could have been achieved without these shoes – with training, great races, important events. Anybody who knows maths would say there's been a jump here that has to be explained more by technology than human endeavour."

In marathons, World Athletics rules demand that road shoes must have a maximum thickness of 40 millimetres (Adidas' Pro Evo 3 has a stack height of 39mm) and have no more than one rigid structure while in track events, the shoes cannot have a stack height greater than 20mm.

However, Wardlaw feels this is not enough and would not mind a situation where the sport’s governing body clamped down on ‘supershoes’ completely just like swimming did by banning the polyurethane suits from January 1, 2010.

"My view is once we've got data – and there's masses of data – I would have thought there's room to think seriously about the regulations," Wardlaw further stated.

"World Athletics I think at the elite end should have made some more conscious decisions. As I say, I still think it's not too late now to freeze it a little bit.

"World Athletics should be consciously being more deliberate about what we think is legitimate in the sport. Otherwise, we'll be on springs! We've seen all the memes of people on pogo sticks.

"The legacy question is a big, big issue for the sport. There are asterisks everywhere. There's no question about the technology."