Kenya's Faith Kipyegon celebrates after winning the women's 1500m event of the Diamond League athletics meeting at the Olympic stadium in Rome on August 30, 2024. (Photo by Tiziana FABI / AFP) (Photo by TIZIANA FABI/AFP via Getty Images)Liam Tharme
In two weeks’ time, Faith Kipyegon is attempting to become the first woman to break the iconic four-minute barrier in the mile.
As part of what Nike are marketing as Breaking4 — akin to Eliud Kipchoge’s Breaking2 attempt for the marathon back in 2017 — they have announced various new technologies created by a six-strong innovation team.
These include revolutionised super spikes, a “one-of-one” 3D-printed sports bra, and an aerodynamic “fly suit” with aeronodes that aim to reduce drag. The suit also comes complete with arm sleeves, leg sleeves and a headband.
Nike said, in a press release, they have used their “full power of sports science research and design expertise to create the integrated made-for-speed products to help get her there — breaking a barrier thought to be indomitable”.
The spikes are not the Victory 2 which Kipyegon won the Olympic 1,500m title in last summer, when she became the first athlete to win gold in that event three times and successfully defend her crown for the second Games.
Instead, Nike have made a “bespoke” spike using Kipyegon’s feedback. It is slightly taller than the Victory 2 and the carbon-fibre plate is lighter, while the upper is created from “ultra-lightweight yarns”.
There has been an effort to balance substance with style. ‘FK’ is written onto one of the plates — her initials and also standing for ‘Fastest Known’.
Nike are not specific in the technology used but say the spikes are made with “advanced foams” — which have revolutionised athletics along with carbon-fibre plates in marathon shoes as well as on the track — that have superior energy return to traditional racing spikes. Research has shown they can improve performance by one to three per cent.
Kipyegon will be debuting Nike’s new “FlyWeb” sports bra at the Stade Charlety in Paris when she attempts to knock nearly eight seconds from her own world record from Monaco two summers ago (4:07.64).
The 3D-printed sports bra is made from thermoplastic polyurethane, designed to be “lightweight, soft feel and breathable”. Nike says it is “one-of-one” and came about as a result of “years of experimentation”.
Janett Nichol, Nike’s vice president of innovation, said: “We’re just scratching the surface. This is a true unlock, not just for bras but for how we design and build high-performance apparel going forward.”
The other key component is the blacked-out, all-in-one super suit that Nike have crafted, with matching arm sleeves and a headband.
The principal researcher at the Nike Sports Research Lab Brett Kirby said: “The integrative nature of this kit means everything. Not any one thing will help her break it.”
Nike do not say what the suit is made from — “a new proprietary slick and stretchy material” — but they explained why it is laden with 3D-printed aeronodes.
These nodes, which differ in size and placement on the suit, are designed to smoothen air flow and reduce what are called ‘eddies’ in fluid dynamics. This is where fluid swirls into turbulent flow and a reverse current forms.
Researchers who worked on the Breaking2 project have modelled Kipyegon’s Monaco performance.
They found that she only drafted for the first 900 metres and ran a negative split. The researchers believe that with one pacemaker in-front and one behind for the whole race — potentially with two fresh pacemakers from 800m onwards — she can run 3:59.
It is, Nike accepts, a “moonshot”.
Kipyegon’s 2023 world-record in Monaco took more than four seconds off Sifan Hassan’s mile of 2019, which was the biggest single jump in the women’s mile world-record since the 1970s.
That came after Kipyegon, then 27, had already broken the 1,500m and 5,000m world records earlier in the summer, en route to winning her fourth 1,500m World Championship title.
She came agonisingly close, again, to breaking the 1,000m world record in her season opener in Xiamen, China, back in April. Kipyegon was less than three tenths of a second off Svetlana Masterkova’s 2:28.98 from 1998 with a 2:29.21 time that translates to a four-minute flat mile.
Nike’s footwear lead Carrie Dimoff said: “If she crosses the line in under four minutes, it won’t just be a new world record — it wil be a new understanding of what’s possible for women in sport.”
Technically, it will not be ratified as a world record by World Athletics, the sport’s global governing body.
This is because the race is not sanctioned and a rotating group of pacemakers is expected. Nike have not announced the strategy yet but this was their approach with Kipchoge, and, if they are to only use female athletes, nobody is on Kipyegon’s level over this distance.
The spikes are expected to conform to the requirements (a midsole stack height of 20mm for middle-distance events as of November 2024), but they have not been sent to World Athletics for review, and unverified spikes are world record ineligible.
Still, like eight years ago with Kipchoge in Monza, Nike seems unbothered about how official or not the time is.
As innovation lead Amy Jones Vaterlaus said: “This isn’t just a project. It’s a legacy, to change what’s possible in sport.”
Liam Tharme is one of The Athletic’s Football Tactics Writers, primarily covering Premier League and European football.
Prior to joining, he studied for degrees in Football Coaching & Management at UCFB Wembley (Undergraduate), and Sports Performance Analysis at the University of Chichester (Postgraduate). Hailing from Cambridge, Liam spent last season as an academy Performance Analyst at a Premier League club, and will look to deliver detailed technical, tactical, and data-informed analysis.
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