Adidas, Like Nike, Is Working on Subordinated-2 Hour Marathon Project
December 16 2016 - 06:29AM
Dow Jones News
By Sara Germano
For sportswear makers, producing the world's first sub-2-hour
marathon is becoming the ultimate arms race.
Nike Inc. this week said it would stage an attempt to break the
2-hour barrier in the spring. Its chief rival Adidas AG has also
been working on a similar effort, according to people familiar with
the matter. The Adidas project is at least two years in development
and has already yielded a prototype of a running shoe, one of the
people said.
Nike said it is developing new footwear for its project and has
enlisted three of its top sponsored marathoners, including the
reigning Olympic champion, to commit to running a race sometime in
the next few months. Nike hasn't decided where it will stage the
event but said it won't be eligible for a world record.
The Adidas project is aimed at helping current Adidas athletes
break the 2-hour barrier on an established course, one of the
people said. The company sponsors the current world record holder,
Dennis Kimetto of Kenya, who set the time of 2:02:57 in Berlin in
2014. It is unclear how close Adidas is to its attempt.
Adidas declined to comment. Nike said it began work on its own
sub-2 marathon project in summer 2014, "although we had been
working on a specific marathon footwear solution for over a year
prior."
In recent years, Nike and Adidas have operated in an
increasingly competitive market, not only for sports marketing
influence but in sales of sportswear. The rise of so-called
athleisure has brought more competitors into the mix and sales of
casual, fashion-forward shoes have risen faster than
performance-oriented sneakers.
Those conditions have put more pressure on the likes of Nike and
Adidas to reignite sales of performance gear. "A pendulum swing in
fashion preference from performance towards lifestyle fashion
athletic footwear has contributed to a bearish sentiment on Nike,"
wrote Stifel analyst Jim Duffy earlier this week.
A sub-2-hour marathon is considered something of a last frontier
in running, since the four-minute mile was shattered decades ago.
The topic is often debated but experts are skeptical that the
barrier will be broken in the near term.
Nike said "the only real failure would be to not attempt it."
The company said it is developing a full product line, including
footwear and apparel, for its event, details of which will be
released at a later date.
Running experts say it is unclear what enhancements either Nike
or Adidas can provide to help elite athletes shave nearly 3 minutes
off the world's record. According to the competition rule book by
the International Association of Athletics Federations, the
governing body of track and field, shoes worn in competition "must
not be constructed so as to give an athlete any unfair additional
assistance, including by the incorporation of any technology which
will give the wearer any unfair advantage."
Write to Sara Germano at sara.germano@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 16, 2016 06:14 ET (11:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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