Records are being smashed but the runners involved are reluctant to admit the difference the new technology is making
When the double Olympic 1500m medallist Nick Willis first tried athletics’ super spikes last month, they didn’t feel wildly different. A bit more cushioned, sure, which reduced the rigid impact of hitting the hard track. But then he checked his watch. It showed he had run a lung‑busting 1200m time trial two seconds faster than he expected. “I was really surprised,” he told me. “It made me a believer.”
Willis reckons the new spike technology, which is powered by a superlight and highly responsive Pebax material, is worth between one to three seconds a mile, depending whether or not someone is a “high responder”. Another Olympian I spoke to, who wanted to remain anonymous, put the advantage at two to four seconds. Either way, it amounts to a change as seismic as when cinder tracks became synthetic.
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