The stars of track and field need a powerful and independent union to protect them from abuse from the sportswear giant and the mismanagement of the governing bodyWhat more can one say about Nike except that in a hotly contested field it once again leads the way in being the biggest hypocrite in global sport?It urges women to Dream Crazier, throwing the spotlight on female stars who have shattered barriers and inspired the next generation, while also telling others, such as Allyson Felix and Alysia Montaño, that they will pause or reduce their contracts when they get pregnant. Related: Nike investigates claims of ‘emotional and physical abuse’ at Oregon Project Related: Mary Cain ‘emotionally and physically abused’ by Alberto Salazar’s...
Ruling body’s technological committee meets on Monday and is likely to wave through Nike footwear worn to shatter marathon-distance recordsIt is the shoes, stupid. Anyone who says otherwise is deluded.Without those chunky, super-fast prototype Nike alphaFLYs – the ones with platforms to make Ziggy Stardust swoon – Eliud Kipchoge does not shatter the two-hour marathon-distance barrier in Vienna. Related: Nike’s lightning shoes hint at power of technology to skew elite competition | Sean Ingle Related: Armchair viewers get a glimpse of the future and it looks to be laser-guided | Richard Williams Continue reading...
Comfy mattresses and the proper washing of hands prove no match for extra-special shoesI don’t remember much about reading Bradley Wiggins’s last autobiography, his 16th I believe, but one detail has stayed with me. It was an incident from around 2011 or 2012 when, having shed six kilos, “Twiggo” started to be considered a serious contender for the Tour de France. When he left home to compete in the race, his preparations were so forensic that it was decided he should not lift his cases into the car taking him to the airport. Why risk an injury now after months of brutal training and near-starvation? Cath, the long‑suffering Mrs Wiggins, did the honours.Looking back, this was perhaps the period when...
For all its help in straightening out rugby union and its recent assistance to Eliud Kipchoge, what effect will green-line technology have on the off-the-cuff spontaneity of live sport?While the glorious phenomenon that is Simone Biles was winning a fifth all‑around world gymnastics title last week with routines that included a triple-twisting double backflip during the floor exercise and a two‑flips‑two-twists dismount from the beam, she was doing things that the human eye could barely take in. But there were no worries that what she was doing might be missed.Her every movement, and those of her 546 rivals, was being captured by three-dimensional laser sensors hidden inside boxes placed around the floor of the Stuttgart arena. Developed by Fujitsu, the...
There is no evidence that Mo Farah cheated – but sometimes people are judged by the company they keepShortly after revelations first surfaced about Alberto Salazar being investigated by the US Anti-Doping Agency in 2015, I asked a UK Athletics contact whether they feared reputational damage if he was ever convicted. “Of course,” came the reply. “But we’ve gone all in on Alberto and Nike.” Long past the witching hour in Doha on Monday night, that decision came back to haunt them. And with the legendary American coach now banned for four years for “orchestrating and facilitating prohibited doping conduct”, UKA now looks desperately short of chips.After all it was Neil Black, UKA’s performance director, who used to travel at...