Andrew Rizzo Every four years, the Olympic Games offer sneaker brands a chance to put their foremost performance innovations on a global stage. Obviously there are several factors that come into play when evaluating performance, but out of all sports, running results are far and away the most reflective of an athlete’s choice of footwear. Now that the dust has settled on the Paris Games, all the biggest brands have begun crunching the numbers to evaluate just how well their sponsored track and field participants did, and adidas stands stall as a clear victor.
adidas athletes wearing adizero spikes took home gold in 5 of the 12 fastest Olympic events; the 800m and sprint distances. Six-time world champion Noah Lyles won gold in the 100m Sprint, and his countryman Grant Holloway emerged victorious in the 110m Hurdle (pictured below). Both Americans wore adizero Prime SP 3 Strung x Y3 spikes en route to the podium, which actually released to the public a couple months before the Paris Games. Lightstrike Pro forefoot cushioning and a lightweight Strung upper stand out as the two key features of the shoe.
Other gold medalists that wore adizero include Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic, who won the women’s 400m, men’s 800m winner Emmanuel Wanyonyi of Kenya, and men’s 400m winner Quincy Hall of the USA. All three wore the standard Prime SP 3 Strung spikes, which feature the same technical specs as the Y3 version but differ purely from a design standpoint. Additionally, Ethiopian marathon runner Tamirat Tola put on a record-setting performance in his event, striding to gold in the adizero Adios Pro Evo 1, the lightest marathon world-record winning shoe ever. All told, adizero athletes won 50% of gold medals and earned 50% of all available marathon running podium spots. Moreover, in men’s sprinting events of 400m or less, adizero athletes accounted for 60% of all possible individual gold medals.
See detailed images of the adizero athletes and their corresponding footwear below.
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- Tamirat Tola (Ethiopia) adizero Adios Pro Evo 1 adidas
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- Marileidy Paulino (Dominican Republic) adizero Prime SP 3 Strung adidas
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- Emmanuel Wanyonyi (Kenya) adizero Prime SP 3 Strung adidas
