Is this shoe making athletes faster? Yes, but don’t ban it — top sports coach

A leading high performance coach says the new shoe likely to be banned probably does give athletes a competitive edge.

But he doesn’t think that’s a reason to ban it.

The controversial Nike Vaporfly were worn by Kenyan marathon runner, Brigid Kosgei (pictured above), when she smashed the women’s marathon world record by 81 seconds in October last year.

Nike’s Vaporfly contains super-thick soles incorporating carbon plates, which act like springs.

They claim to improve running performance by around 5%.

Now, World Athletics could put a ban on them.

High performance athletics coach Joel Hocking told 3AW’s Tom Elliott such technology could make a big difference to the running sport.

“If you look at the last five or six men’s marathon world records, they were probably broken by, on average, around 45 seconds,” he said.

“You’re looking at a 0.5-1.5% improvement in speed across a two hour event.

“To get an absolute elite runner to improve 1.5% or even the average punter, the majority of people will jump at it straight away.”

Mr Hocking says when companies with big budgets for research and development come out with new technologies, it sets the standards and people want to jump on board.

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Image: Quinn Harris/Getty