Kenya and Ethiopia. For decades, the two East African nations have been fighting for supremacy in long-distance running. In the marathon distance, its superiority is total. Currently, if we take a look at the top 20 athletes in the 2024 world rankings, in the men’s marathon, Kenya wins 9-8 over Ethiopia. In the women’s event it is Ethiopia that wins 10-7. But there is another war, increasingly fierce. Sports brands have entered the marathon with clear objectives: boost sales of their shoes, develop their most advanced technologies and hire the best runners in the world. The war in this case has centered between the two giants. Nike-Adidas (or Alphafly versus Adizero) is the new battle of the marathon. After the surprising world record of the Kenyan Chepngetich two weeks ago in the Chicago Marathon, Nike has snatched the women’s marathon record from Adidas. The American brand, based in Oregon, also has held the men’s world record for a year, with the 2h00:35 of the late Kelvin Kiptum. Nike’s ‘Alphafly 3s’ model sneakers had suddenly become the great dominators of the world bottom… until this past Sunday. In the Valencia Half Marathon, Adidas returned to the top. The victory of the Ethiopian Kejelcha wearing Adizero ProEvo and breaking the world record has returned equality to the fight with Nike. A duel that is bringing millions of dollars to the two companies. Kejelcha, in the center of the podium, with his Adidas EFE “What is clear is that those from Nike were the pioneers in the technology of these new sneakers,” he tells ABC Jesús Oliván, former elite long jumper and currently professor of athletics at the INEF in Madrid. «They developed the carbon plate and the others have followed in their wake. We knew that Adidas was not going to sleep and that is what happened. Asics, New Balance, Puma and even now Joma have also jumped on the bandwagon. It is a phenomenal technological race in which everyone is developing their own models to take world records at different distances. The carbon plate has become an important factor, not only for competition but also for training. Now athletes do a long training session, 30 kilometers, and their muscles no longer suffer as before,” concludes Oliván. “It is true that now the two marathon world records are held by Nike, but my opinion is that the shoes from Adidas are already of the same quality. This is how Javier Guerra expresses himself, with a time of 2h07′, considered one of the greatest Spanish marathon specialists. «I remember what happened to me in 2020, when I had a contract with Adidas and I warned them about the importance of shoes with carbon plates. In the end they couldn’t provide them to me, and since I didn’t want to tune them or deal with stories of that type, I had to break the contract to run with the Nike ones in the Seville Marathon. The impressive thing is that the first 30 of that marathon ran with Nike shoes. Now this has changed, I believe that the quality has been equalized and Adidas is once again strong and with quality models. Exclusive agentsThe importance of shoes is decisive in the current marathon because it determines even the agents that control the athletes. In the world marathon elite, representatives work with a single brand. Federico Rosa, manager of the new record holder Chepngetich, only works with athletes contracted by Nike. His Italian rival, Madonna’s Gianni, another great representative of marathon runners, works exclusively with Adidas athletes. It is an all-out war between authentic stables of runners. Juan Carlos Higuero, one of the greatest Spanish 1,500 meter runners, tells ABC that Nike’s secret “is above all that it is the brand that invests the best in runners and that “best chip.” And he adds: «I equate it a lot to Formula One, the athletes are the drivers and the shoes are the cars. I think Nike does both things well: the cars and the selection of drivers. And I’m also liking Asics, because the Japanese are making very successful moves in recent years. Andreu Ballbé, former Spanish 800 meters record holder, agrees with Higuero: «It seems to me that Nike has been more interested in the marathon than Adidas and has known how to hire the best. “I don’t believe so much about the difference between the quality of some sneakers and others.”
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