Hi everyone, welcome back to SportsVerse, my twice-weekly newsletter that tells stories you can’t find anywhere else about the intersection of sports, fashion, business, and culture.
Nothing helps sell running shoes like athletes breaking records in them.
Adidas had a dream showing in this regard at the London Marathon on Sunday, where not one but two of its athletes (Sabastian Sawe and Yomif Kejelcha) wearing the new Adios Pro Evo 3 supershoes completed the race in under two hours, shattering a barrier in men’s long-distance running many thought was impossible. Meanwhile, in the elite women’s race, Tigst Assefa defended her title in London and broke the previous women’s marathon record time (which she had set herself), also wearing the same shoes as Sawe and Kejelcha.
Now, let’s be clear: the story here is about the mind-blowing achievements that saw Sawe and Kejelcha breaking the long-standing two-hour barrier in the men’s marathon, and about Assefa’s record-breaking run in the women’s category. Some have rightfully pointed out that for the post-race discourse to focus on the shoes and the brands that made them diminishes the achievements of athletes last weekend. But luckily, this is SportsVerse, where we can feel equally comfortable discussing moments of sporting history while analysing the strategy of the surrounding brands in the same breath.
For example, we can understand the sporting significance of Sawe’s victory by analysing the fact that even Nike was compelled to publicly congratulate him (shock-horror, an Adidas athlete) with a dedicated post on the brand’s Instagram page, lauding his history-making 1:59:30 marathon time. Anyone with knowledge of Nike’s ethos (or that of any major sportswear brand) will know that acknowledging a rival company’s athlete is a big departure from how things are usually done, especially given how much money and marketing Nike poured into its 2017 “Breaking2” event in which Eliud Kipchoge tried to be the first to run 26.2 miles in under two hours. I think we need more of this behaviour in the sportswear market, which can feel a little too tribal sometimes.
