Looks like we're going to witness a good match between athletic shoe makers and World Athletics. This has been brewing for some time and it's far from over. A few days ago the World Athletics introduced some regulations in order to limit running shoe technology. This comes after two runners have managed to set up new world records using Nike's newest running shoes, the Nike Vaporfly.

Nike must have known this is going to happen and worked out a plan to help athletes with a new type of shoes. The new model is called Air Zoom Alphafly Next% and it's similar to what the Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge was using during the Vienna marathon, when he managed to break the record and go under two hours.

source

One of the reason Nike Vaporfly has been banned is because of the use of three carbon fibre plates. That is now forbidden, so the new Alphafly has only one carbon fiber plate and is capable of improving running economy by 7-8%, which is huge as the newly banned Vaporfy was able to guarantee only 4-5%. The sole thickness is also right as it's 39.5mm, under the 40mm limit set by World Athletics.

I'm loving this already as the new regulations haven't stopped Nike, more like made them work better and come up with a better solution.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Nike will also offer the shoe in limited quantities online by the end of the month, meaning it will also meet World Athletics’s requirement for new shoes to be available to the public by April in order to be eligible for the Tokyo Olympics starting in July. source

If this is true, then we're going to have a nice competition at the Olympics in Tokyo. Let's see the voices after the Olympics as many have said the two new records are not real as are due to the new shoes even though Brigid Kosgei shoes don't run by themselves, athletes do.

The war is not over yet, I'm expecting World Athletics to ban these too as they most likely are going to find something that they say it's not right. One thing I'm sure of is that none of the shoe making companies will stop development and research and the harder World Athletics try to limit them, the harder they will work to develop the perfect shoes.

I'm curious to see who's going to use these new shoes first and what the result will be. I love the design by the way, it looks unusual but great and I really appreciate that it's not pink. I hate pink!