How hi-tech running shoes – and a bouncy track – are set to rewrite the Olympics record book

In May, ahead of her first appearance of the season at the Eugene Diamond League, Keely Hodgkinson made her annual visit to her sponsor Nike’s headquarters in Oregon. Hodgkinson, a firm favourite for Olympic 800m gold, will wear Nike’s latest iteration of their middle-distance Air Zoom Victory super spikes, which evolved from prototypes first worn at the 2019 World Championships and were subsequently rolled out to the masses after the Covid pandemic. When he broke the 400m hurdles world record at the Tokyo Olympics, Norway’s Karsten Warholm hit out at his main rival Rai Benjamin’s Nike spikes, saying: “If you put a trampoline I think it’s bull****, and I think it takes credibility away from our sport.” open image in gallery Hodgkinson competing during the 2023 European Athletics Indoor Championships Recently, Warholm acknowledged to The Guardian that he was the “biggest hypocrite in the whole world”, having been forced to embrace technology and now wearing bizarre Puma spikes that feature a toe flap which sticks out the end of the shoe. “You can feel the difference,” said Sydney McLaughlin, who had broken the women’s 400m hurdles world record. open image in gallery Hodgkinson and coach Trevor Painter in 2023 That kind of bill was too much for the likes of Birmingham City Council, who opted against installing the top-of-the-range track option produced by their chosen manufacturer Beynon when they redeveloped the Alexander Stadium for the 2022 Commonwealth Games, instead plumping for a cheaper, more resilient, model.