Olympic sneakers through the years: from comfort to “shoe doping”?

creator and author of the sneaker and street culture blog First Soupe

Tells the story of footwear for Olympians and discusses whether we need this progress.

Not so long ago, the Daily Mail published a rather lengthy and detailed piece on the controversy of shoe technology at the Tokyo Olympics. It’s actually not such a new problem, it’s been around since the Rio Olympics in 2016. In 2021, it got worse: it became apparent that athletes wearing certain sneakers were running suspiciously faster than their competitors.

We’re talking about the Nike Air Zoom Maxfly and Puma EvoSpeed Future Faster+ cleats, whose outsoles are equipped with carbon fiber plates and shock-absorbing cushions. These technologies allow athletes to break their own records as well as world records.

The sports community – both experts and athletes themselves – cannot come to a consensus on “shoe doping”. For example, Olympic champion in the 400m race Carsten Warholm is known for his criticism of Nike because of “springs in the sole” and considers it unfair that some have them and some do not.

Carsten Warholm

At the same time, there is another view of the future: for example, the Daily Mail quotes Jeff Burns, a biomechanics expert at the University of Michigan, who argues that brands and their technologies will likely align and create a level playing field among Olympians.

Burns’ optimism is enviable: sneaker makers are so different and so fiercely competitive that we’re unlikely to see a level playing field in technology for years to come.

But let’s look at history – what role do the Olympics play in the sneaker industry and vice versa? It has to be said, the mutual influence is colossal. The Olympics is one of the main incentives for brands to develop their technology, find new ambassadors and get mind-blowing publicity.

For example, Converse in the 30s of the last century and Onitsuka Tiger in the 60s got a significant start thanks to the Olympic Games. And if we talk about our days, the criticism of Nike Warholm, of course, does not paint the brand, but it is not difficult to imagine what excitement will be created by ordinary people around the “cleats with springs”.

Rai Benjamin

Sneakers for Olympic athletes aren’t just flashy “nano-jackets” either. Injuries in professional sports, as they call it, are included in the estimate, and properly fitted shoes keep athletes (primarily runners of any distance) at least from knee joint injuries and ankle sprains. Therefore, if the world does not want to openly mock its champions, it should provide them with suitable comfortable shoes. And what comfort is, as it turns out, is not clear to anyone.

While Warholm is sure that carbon plates and shock-absorbing cushions are cheating for sprinters, American track and field athlete Ray Benjamin uses just such shoes as the most comfortable for a professional.

Here are some examples of Olympic sneakers that significantly changed the idea of comfortable footwear for sports. And what it was – necessary progress or technological doping – let everyone judge for himself.

1895: can shoes have spikes?!

J.W. FOSTER

“Championship” has already written about how the grandfather of the creators of Reebok Joseph William Foster invented in his time “sneakers on nails” – in fact, the prototype of spikes, which would be developed and improved after the 50s of the XX century and without which it is difficult to imagine modern sports.

If you think about it, Foster invented such “nail shoes” precisely out of a desire to simplify his life: not to slip on the ground like his fellow runners, to push off the ground more easily, and so on. I will even allow myself to spell it out: from Karsten Warholm’s point of view, the main cheat in the running industry is not Nike at all, but Joseph Foster, who did not want to run “like everyone else” and invented spikes. And one of the few honest people turns out to be Abebe Bikila – without any irony, the great marathoner, who participated in competitions barefoot.

1959: it turns out that sneakers need to breathe!

In the 21st century, the need for perforations in sports shoes is obvious: sweaty feet are unpleasant, uncomfortable and even dangerous. However, few people thought about this 60 years ago, and you won’t see perforations on many archival models from the late 1950s (e.g. adidas rekord). And even in the ’60s, perforations on sneakers weren’t commonplace. But on the Onitsuka Tiger Magic Runner, you’ll still see the coveted air holes back in 1959.

Onitsuka Tiger brand creator Kihachiro Onitsuka literally saved athletes from sweaty feet with his technology of small holes above the sole. The story behind the creation of sneakers with this technology was that Onitsuka, coming out of a hot bath, saw that the skin on his toes was wrinkling for natural reasons. And then he realized that such heat with closed shoes could provoke calluses – painful, unpleasant, and if unfortunate, could lead to infection. Perforations were designed to save athletes from this risk. And it was in the Magic Runner that Japanese runner Kenji Kimihara won the silver medal in the marathon at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City.

1960s-1970s: sneakers, what, could be soft!

Elasticity, cushioning and softness in the sole – in 2021 it seems that without these qualities sneakers in general are unthinkable, not only for professional athletes, but also for ordinary people. After all, it’s not only comfort, but also energy return, when the push becomes stronger and the step – more rapid and springy. In short, this is exactly what Warholm was talking about when he compared Nike sneakers to springs.

However, we should not take his words out of context here: of course, Warholm as a professional athlete and just a person with common sense understands that any modern sneakers to varying degrees and elastic and shock-absorbing, but cushioning in Nike for him is already too much. But where did the trend for soft foam in the sole of sneakers come from in the first place?

The foam sole is perhaps the most important thing that happened in the 70’s in the sneaker industry. That’s when the well-known EVA (ethylene vinyl acetate, EVA) foam began to be used in athletic shoes. It is already difficult to establish exactly where, how and under what conditions it first appeared in shoes. Some say that the Onitsuka Tiger Corsair models had EVA in the sole as early as 1968, while others say that the pioneers were Brooks in 1974, and Onitsuka Tiger simply improved the Corsair post facto.

But what’s really important is that it was with the use of EVA that a new layer of discussion emerged in the sneaker culture and industry. Whereas before it was all about how to keep athletes safe from the dreaded scourges of sprains, sweating and slipping, it was in the 1970s that athletic shoe manufacturers embarked on the slippery slope of “Faster! Stronger! Higher!” or technological doping.

What would come next would be a very different sneaker era, which would be a sneaker technology competition. Brands will try to please track and field athletes who want to run faster, or basketball players who want to jump higher. The crowning and natural finale of the 1970s would be the invention of Air technology by Nike – the same compressed air capsules that Warholm lamented.

Which of the above can be called technological doping is debatable. However, even now, both spikes, compressed air in the sole, and carbon fiber plates are part of both professional and lifestyle sports. So if some sneaker technologies do get banned for Olympic athletes, there will also be a change in the world of ordinary people without world records when it comes to sneaker attitudes. However, how these changes will take place and what they will consist of is also still unclear.