Kipchoge, Rupp, & Flanagan Are All Guilty of Mechanical Doping in 2016 - Will Anything Be Done About It?

NO shoes make a person faster. The person was already that fast and the shoe just allowed them to reach their true potential.

I ran my first marathon in flats and the lack of cushioning in the shoe trashed my legs and my time suffered. My next marathon I stuck with my trainers which are heavy, but felt great to run in. My time suffered because the shoe was just too heavy for 26 miles.

The VF gave me a shoe that was light and provided lots of cushion which is ideal for the marathon. It's clear that flats and trainers are just poor choices for the marathon distance. Nike figured that out first and they get to reap the rewards for building a better mouse trap.

I PR'd wearing the VF, not because the shoe made me run faster, its because all other shoes were poorly designed for the marathon, and caused me to run slower than my potential. There are shoes that are specifically designed for sprints, throws, jumps, etc., but Nike makes one specifically for marathoners and ROJO looses his mind.

We have to stop killing our sport. It's not all about " the shoes", instead the person. I have workers that are walkers, not even close to joggers, and they watched the 1:59 race. They talk about how great it was. Isn't our goal: is to make distance running cool and reach non runners?

Dill Dickleson wrote:

I'm not sure if you're deliberately misquoting the IAAF rule or not, but it's written as "reasonably available to all in the spirit of the universality of athletics." Reasonably, not readily. That's a lot more vague, isn't it? Reasonably could be defined in a lot of different ways.

The most significant word is "type." The "type" of she has to be reasonably available to all, not the precise model. Nobody knows what constitutes a "type" of shoe.

Instead of trying to kill the traffic and use of EPO they waste their time to ban Nike Shoes .

Nonsense

toast wrote:

ShilohDoesntCare wrote:

It's ridiculous that anyone on here is still attempting to argue that the shoes have barely any difference.

No one is arguing VF's aren't clearly superior to other shoes. We are arguing that nothing illegal took place, and no cheating took place, so the concept of stripping Olympic medals is absurd.

Exactly. Rojo wrote the article to generate clicks - which he clearly has.

toast wrote:

ShilohDoesntCare wrote:

It's ridiculous that anyone on here is still attempting to argue that the shoes have barely any difference.

No one is arguing VF's aren't clearly superior to other shoes. We are arguing that nothing illegal took place, and no cheating took place, so the concept of stripping Olympic medals is absurd.

This. Regardless of how much advantage a shoe gives, no sport retroactively disqualifies athletes for not following rules that didn't exist until years later.

PrZ wrote:

Lame publicity attempt. Try again letsrun!

Totally agree.

If I have my timing correct, the Vaporflys came out in early 2016. Did Kipchoge run London in them? He was within a few seconds of the world record in perfect conditions but the extra 4% wasn't enough. Conversely, if he didn't run in them you can argue he was already world record level before they existed. Hell the guy ran 2:04 with his sneakers falling off.

No world records in the Men's or Women's marathon until Sept 2018 and Oct 2019. So it took several years for the magic shoes to be magic enough for the records to fall? Or perhaps once someone accomplishes something a "mental human barrier' is lifted or at least lessened and people can get closer to it and surpass it? 60 years ago and 4:00 mile was nearly impossible for the human race. Now? You're probably not becoming pro if you can only run that.

Do the shoes help? Yes.

Does more dialed in nutrition help? Yes.

Does the fact that 2:03:30 and 2:17:00 seem more attainable by your compatriots help? Yes.

People act as if the shoes came out and suddenly every record fell and every race was won by someone in those shoes. It happened no more for the Vaporflys than it did when Adidas came out with their Boost material. (record-wise may have taken even longer) Mary K. toasted everyone in NYC and she wasn't in the VFs.

I'm fine with the regulations that came out today. I'm hopeful all the non-Nike pros and trials athletes can wear the shoes they've been training in (Alpha flys aside) but perhaps the most important thing to me is the prototype ban.

With it, worst case a pro can go and buy the shoe they think is best and paint it. Right now it's probably the Next %, maybe for a cold and rainy day in Boston it's Des's shoe? (we know Kipchoge struggled with the 4% in Berlin due to them getting heavy and being slippery) Maybe it'll be the new Adidas version (assuming that gets in by 4/30)

Coevett wrote:

moderators that routinely delete threads highlighting doping information about former stars relevant to evaluating their legacy - such as a thread I made recently about Miruts Yifter and his training in East Germany

Isn't this historical information? Why was this deleted?

This might be the biggest joke in Letsrun history.

Literally, this is something they post on April Fools day.

Vacate the medals?

Add an asterisk to the results?

For what? All because some feeble minded individuals think the Vaporflys are illegal? You guys must think the Earth is flat too.

You are journalists, so did you at least do some research into the rest of the field? How many others were wearing Vaporflys and did not medal? Why didn't the other runners medal (or place 4th- however many were wearing them? Can you precisely state which exact runners were wearing the shoes and what their place was? Until you can do that, this is nonsense.

This is just a complete joke. It gave me a very loud laugh though.

You realize he's just trolling for comments, right? And it's working.

rojo wrote:

The analogy is pass interference in the NFL. In the past all of the companies were hand checking and grabbing the receiver a little bit and no flag is called, but this is the equivalent of the tackle that was missed in New Orleands last year. When someone gets tackled we know it's interference.

Well guess what, that wasn't called pass interference and the results stand. Great analogy genius.

You've taken what is already a somewhat boring sport, and now made it appear to have even less appeal to the general public with how much of the content of this site has been dedicated to shoes.

Is there not something better to cover than Nike shoe developments?

First things first, let's get Frank Shorter his 1976 gold medal.

Then we can give Tom Brady a four year suspension.

Why are we stopping at shoes? May I also suggest we go back to dirt tracks and not allow spikes. Those are clearly not available to everyone and put those in poverty at a disadvantage.

zzzz wrote:

Rojo didn't make up the term. See cycling:

Cyclists are competent engineers who understand the mechanics of their sport as thoroughly as runners are ignorant of the mechanics of theirs.

Laughing all the way to the bank wrote:

Gratin' wrote:

Rojo you are big big big big big dumb

I'm sure his accountant will disagree.

Reallly? This forum, despite being straight from the 90's, has managed to get a near monopoly on the biggest participation sport or fitness activity on the planet. I doubt if this has much to do with the Brojos actually, at least not their intelligence. It seems to have been a combination of blundering into turning this site into a success and the connections they have made in life as almost uniquely successful distance runners coming from an elite university and privileged background.

They continue to blunder on and yet somehow this site continues to dominate regardless. For example, the terrible moderation with constant seemingly random deletions of threads and posts.

You can draw a parallel with Facebook and Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg doesn't come across to me and many others as particularly bright, as compared at least to the likes of Musk and Bezos. What happened with him was he was a privileged kid with wealthy parents who got him into Harvard. He hacked into the university computer accounts of females to make a very sexist copy of the famous 'Hot or Not' pic rating site. Instead of getting kicked out of Uni or put on the register like an ordinary kid would, somehow, through incredible luck and his unique position with his own social connections (contrary to the film made about him), he blunders into turning that into a billion dollar stranglehold on social networking.

It's not IQ, it's luck and position at the right time.