Why are NCAA 10,000s run in super shoes like Vaporflys allowed to count for World Athletics rankings?

Wow, this is crazy. I can't even wear Vaporflys for my local master's league races in the UK. England Athletics are enforcing the WA rules, justifying it because qualifying times for national and international competitions can be set even in crappy local track meets.

Anyone running in Vaporflys in NCAA competition should be forced to declare it and have their result struck off for WA ranking purposes

What about athletes running in the same race and qualifying for NCAA finals? If half the field is in Vaporflys and you didn't get the memo that its ok, but wear a show that is in compliance with WA then you could feasibly miss out on qualifying for finals this way.

My thoughts are the rules are the rules, whether or not I agree, so in order for all track results to be accurate they need to be applied equally internationally across the board.

This is exactly what is happening in Greece too. I thought it was the case worldwide but apparently not.

It's actually laughable that people like you who follow the sport are so heavily ignorant and only possess such a narrow minded view. You see , aside from world championships there are state and national meets in every country , and these 28 and 32 although far away from world class performances serves as an official marker in entering meets in their respective nations or regional games like south east asian games etc etc

I was at a local meet a couple of months ago where an official got some calipers out to measure the shoes some guy in his 60s was wearing for a 3000m. They weren't even supershoes, just fairly standard trainers, but he was still thrown out

Yea, this is the problem with the shoe regulations. The same thing has happened here to poor kids with regular trainers. I don't agree with the rules, but at the point that WA deems them necessary official track races should follow them. I think on a broader note WA shoe reevaluate the regulations, but I think they won't as they seem economically motivated.

Here is a link to European Athletics High Performance Webinar series (registration is needed, but its free). "Modern running shoes and the evolution of performance" is a presentation by Stephane Bermon, a WA exericse physiologist. In his presentation I think he alludes to the economic aspect a few times.

Dragonflies do NOT have a carbon plate. How are people on this site so uninformed???

Ok a pebax hard plastic plate actually, which has the same effect as a carbon fibre plate. My point still stands that the dragonfly is obviously a more performant shoe than someone trying to just race in trainers or an old style of flat to save their legs/their achilles. Stack height still feels arbitrary. I'd rather just ban all stiff plates in spikes & flats than focus on stack height, that way people that can't wear spikes can just throw on a pair of non-supershoe flats and compete fairly.

The financial aspect needs to be taken into account by governing bodies. I ran a meet last year - extremely low level, 15:30 was the winning time for 5k - and most of the field had Dragonflys. All this rule has done at the lower levels is effectively force people to buy an expensive pair of spikes that they'll wear 2-3 times each year.

For master's runners, they should also take into account the health factors. Older guys really suffer over 12.5 laps running in shoes with limited cushioning

Because the NCAA does not check for the shoes and does not technically have a rule against, and because they do not check for the shoes they get submitted with all of the other results. This really is something that should be looked at if it's a rule at the world athletics level. The easiest solution is the NCAA just needs to adopt the rule as well and do a spike check.

On this same note, not all road races do a shoe check. A person could run fast at a certified road race (certified in distance/elevation drop/point to point rules) but the race doesn't check for shoes and they could run in illegal shoes. There is no consistency in enforcing shoe rules.

All the NCAA would have to do is announce they are following the WA standards and most people will just follow the rules. A few DQs at a handful of meets would put an end to this. People aren’t accidentally running races in a $250 pair of shoes.

I don’t think that this is the only beef between USATF/WA and the NCAA, but man it is an obvious one. With all the pictures and videos online of NCAA races you can see people wearing supershoes at a glance and at some point someone is just going to say enough is enough.

They actually can't unless they have an appropriately qualified official. I seem to recall some hammer throw last year couldn't qualify as there wasn't a suitably qualified track judge at the competition.

UKA / EA standpoint is nonsense. They introduced the rules because IAAF said they had to but then explicitly ignore the clear guidance that it shouldn't apply to the vast majority of amateur races.

Disagree. WA did screw up, but the better move would be to disallow them on the roads and xc. Make everything consistent in that manner. Lets see the best athletes, not the best responders to technology.

Yeah, most league meets in my area will have qualified officials for races. I suspect it's different for throws and jumps as there's the issue of accurate measurement, there's probably fewer qualified people for those events.

They don't have a carbon plate, but you don't need a carbon plate to make a super shoe, the Saucony Speed 2 has a nylon plate, whatever the old track Dragonfly use as a plate is as good or better than carbon.

That simply was not going to happen. There was no way WA athletics was going to roll back the marathon world records that had already been set in supershoes, especially not with all the money they receive from Nike. This was some kind of sad attempt to maintain the integrity of the track records while allowing the road records that were all set in supershoes from the 5k to the marathon to stand. The bottom line is WA was asleep at the wheel when Nike released the Vaporfly, suddenly records are getting broken and they had no real recourse. The 40mm stack height and single rigid body rules were added after the fact as a compromise with the shoe manufacturers. WA rules are also suspiciously silent regarding Nike's air pockets, it seems to me that a carbon fiber plate combined with an air pocket is virtually a spring, it's dang near a catapult! Keep in mind that Nike continues to make and sell the Alphafly which is illegal even for road races. I don't like any of it and I agree they should have never been allowed, but that is the current politics of the situation. It makes it all the more ridiculous that the NCAA is looking the other way on this issue.

The stack height rules seem rather arbitrary but it is a fairly simple and enforceable way to limit what people can do with their shoes. There's just not much you can hide in 20-25mm but 40 mm starts to become a ridiculous amount of space under someone's feet by shoe standards. Today it's super foams and carbon fiber plates, but 5-10 years from now who knows what these manufacturers will try to squeeze in there. The other point I rarely see discussed is simply the added height these shoes are giving runners. Surely giving runners a couple of extra cm of leg length, without the additional weight that would normally entail conveys some advantage by itself? If an athlete showed up in the high jump wearing shoes that made them a couple of inches taller that would be so clearly seen as an attempt to cheat they would laughed out of any stadium, and yet we are just supposed accept that this makes sense in the running events?

I was today years old when I found out. I had no idea they weren't allowed in track competition.

I’m confused about the ban on alphaflys in road races that you mentioned in part of your post. This document of approved shoes released by WA in sept 2022 has alphaflys approved for road races? https://worldathletics.org/download/download?filename=b69b3194-7a4f-4d4d-9c1a-27c0d75d4b80.pdf&urlslug=World%2520Athletics%2520Approved%2520Shoe%2520List%2520(as%2520at%252019%2520September%25202022)