The ‘super spikes’ battle raging at the Olympics – and how Nike cleaned up

Athletes wearing Nike spikes have won all six of the men’s and women’s races from 800m upwards and are favourites to win the remaining four

For those glued this week to the Olympic athletics from the Stade de France, there has been a common sight on the feet of gold-medal winning athletes.
With a striking colour pattern you might associate with a cheetah, Nike launched its latest design in July even if the actual ‘super spikes’ have been on the feet of leading athletes all year.
And, so far in Paris, athletes wearing either the Air Zoom Victory 2 or Dragonfly 2 have won all six of the men’s and women’s races from 800m upwards. Nike also has the bookmakers’ favourites in the remaining four.
Having a vast stable of exceptional runners certainly helps — and it all came down to fractions in the men’s 1500m when Cole Hocker sprinted past Josh Kerr, who was wearing gold-branded bespoke Brooks spikes — but a clean sweep come Saturday night now looks increasingly possible.
The clear sense inside the sport is still that we are dealing with a much more of a level playing field than in Tokyo — where some runners with other brands even wore unmarked Nike shoes — and this is supported by the sprint events in Paris and a spread of world records already this year variously in New Balance, Adidas and Puma as well as Nike footwear.
Even so, you do not need athletes of the calibre of Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson and Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen — still the favourite over 5,000m even after his 1500m defeat — to be convinced that Nike is still innovating in this era of Pebax-foamed and carbon-plated ‘super’ shoes and and spikes.
Nike has two main designs in the middle and longer-distance races; the Victory 2, which includes a Zoom Air bubble in the front foot of the sole that can even have its PSI adjusted according to the weight of an athlete. It also has a full-length carbon plate inside the ZoomX and is aimed more at the middle-distance races of 800m and 1500m.
The Dragonfly 2 is more for the 5,000m and 10,000m and, although it does not have the yellow air bubble which is the key visual differentiator between the two models, it does have the carbon plate and foam. Personal preferences vary to the extent that Ingebrigtsen opts for what he sees as the faster Victory 2 over 1500m but the more stable Dragonfly 2 in 5,000m and for much of his high-volume training.
Hodgkinson wore the Dragonfly in 2021 but did not like the first version of the Victory and her feedback has helped inform the development of this latest “less aggressive” model.
“We did a lot of talking and innovation with the Nike team in Oregon over the past two years,” she says. [“They asked] ‘Why don’t you wear the Victorys?’ The old ones weren’t as stable. It was really cool to be involved in those conversations. The new ones are lightweight, secure, fast and so I wear them all the time.”
Hodgkinson was also asked to try out prototypes under development when she raced near its Oregon headquarters in May. “Keely just helps, by saying: ‘I like this’ or: ‘No, I don’t like that — that’s horrible’,” says her coach Trevor Painter. “There were some shoes she was wearing that were a bit flimsy when she was running on the bend. So they’ve got to grips with that and the new Victory 2 shoe that she races in, she just loves. We have seen some prototypes of what’s coming up. They’re like something from Back to the Future.”
All ‘super spikes’ at the Olympics must be commercially available and, if a new prototype is used, World Athletics has a specialist team to check that it is within guidelines. Key requirements are that the heel-stack height cannot exceed 20mm on the track or 40mm on the road and every athlete must declare what shoe they are wearing in advance of competing.
New Balance, which also had ‘super spikes’ in Tokyo, and Brooks are among those brands who have a smaller pool of elite athletes and believe that they can make this work to their advantage by developing even more individualised shoes. “Every shoe company has stepped up,” says Kerr, Britain’s 1500m world champion and Olympic silver medallist. “From Brooks, the investment into the technology has been huge. They were able to make me my own spike this year. There’s a lot less athletes at Brooks, so we’re very individualised and the spikes are made very specifically. I get a lot of say.”
New Balance, for whom Gabby Thomas has already won the 200m, worked with both Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Femke Bol, the two greatest 400m hurdlers in history, on developing its Fuel Cell MDX line at its Boston laboratory, which is used in all distances from 400m upwards. 
“Our goal has always been to be the most boutique sports brand in the world — we always err on the side of few, bigger, better,” said Kevin Fitzpatrick, the vice president for running. “We want to make sure that we have the resources to really understand the athlete and, as importantly, their body, and biomechanics. That allows us to spend a lot more time with Femke, a lot more time with Sydney versus having to spread our time over hundreds of athletes. Our original hypothesis… going back to 2016… was each individual is so different that we need individually customised track spikes.”
New Balance also very deliberately focused on its track spikes at a time when much of the industry was ploughing huge resources into the road shoes. “We were the first brand that actually put carbon fibre directly in contact with the track surface,” says Fitzpatrick, who says that athletes are “crushing records” from High School upwards. “We’re also constantly looking at how we tweak the chemical make-up of those forms… to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to introduce as much energy return at the same time that we’re reducing weight.”
Lord Coe, the president of World Athletics, says the governing body will continue to monitor designs but encourage technical progress, even if the world records from his generations continue to be rearranged. “I don’t think an international federation, or any organisation over civilisation, is best served by strangling technology,” he said. “If we get really fast times in the stadium, I would welcome that.”
1500m Cole Hocker: Victory 210,000m Joshua Cheptegei: Dragonfly 23,000m steeplechase Soufiane El Bakkali: Dragonfly 2
800m Keely Hodgkinson: Victory 25,000m Beatrice Chebet: Victory 23,000m steeplechase Winfred Yavi: Dragonfly 2
5,000m Jakob Ingebrigtsen (favourite): Dragonfly 2 (Ingebrigtsen wears Victory 2s for the 1500m)800m Djamel Sedjati (favourite): Dragonfly 2
1500m Faith Kipyegon (favourite): Victory 210,000m (favourite) Beatrice Chebet: Victory 2