Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe broke the marathon record at the recent London Marathon, covering the 26 mile and 385-yard course in under two hours, becoming the first ever runner to achieve the feat.
The 1908 Olympic marathon was the first to use the modern standard distance and was won by American Johnny Hayes with a time of 2:55:18, meaning that in 118 years ‘man’ has knocked over 55 minutes from the record. At the first London Marathon held in 1981, the winning time was 2:11:48, so even in the last 45 years over 12 minutes has been knocked off the record.
The reasons for the improved performances are numerous, and include diet, sports science and genetics. Perhaps most importantly, however, is the technological developments in equipment – namely running shoes.
The shoes worn by Sawe were the Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3, launched two days before the London race. Already the shoe is historic in breaking the 2-hour marathon record, but crucially even before the race it had broken another record of being the lightest race legal shoe ever developed. Weighing in at 97 grams (3.5 ounces), equivalent to a small banana, the shoe is made of foam and carbon fibre and took three years of materials science to develop.
Those three years of development enabled the new Pro Evo 3 to be 30% lighter than its predecessor, the Pro Evo 2, with most of the reduction coming from the use of a new foam compound. And it’s not just weight that has been focused on.
Most running shoes use a carbon plate along the full length of the foot. Adidas instead uses carbon rods that mirror the foot’s metatarsal bones, which the company claims delivers an 11% increase in energy return and a 1.6% improvement in running economy over its predecessor.
These may be small margins, but they make a huge difference. Despite his undoubted talent, at the finish line Sawe held up his Adidas shoe with his time written along the side, in recognition of the technology that had assisted him, and the amount Adidas had invested in the product. To further highlight the role technology plays in the sport, on the women’s side Ethiopia’s Tigist Assefa defended her London Marathon title and set a new women’s-only world record at 2:15:41 – also wearing the new Pro Evo 3 shoes.
Why do Adidas invest so much time and money in development? Simply because of the marketing advantage that breaking the record will bring. The running shoe market was worth a staggering $54.84 billion last year, and is highly competitive between Nike and Adidas. Nike remains the dominant market leader, but with Nike experiencing a 12% decline in 2025, Adidas is hot on its heals. Adidas has turned its performance around recently, posting an operating profit of around $2.4 billion in 2025, a 54 per cent increase over 2024.
It was a Nike athlete who first broke the two-hour barrier in 2019, but Eliud Kipchoge’s run was a choreographed time trial rather than a competitive race. While bringing global attention to Nike, the ‘stage-managed’ record also galvanized Adidas to join the race to take the official record, and the Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 proved to be the winner.
A limited number of the $500 shoes have been released to market, and sold out immediately – resale sites are now listing the shoes at up to $5,000. When the full market release goes ahead later this year, it is widely expected that demand will be huge, taking a further slice of the market from Nike and increasing Adidas’ growing share.
Despite the symbolic two-hour record having been smashed, experts do not expect any slowdown in the technological race, as Nike will be determined to regain its crown as ‘the fastest shoe’. The competition in laboratories in Europe and the US will continue to be as intense as that between the runners in the race.
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David Little is a Partner at Bishop & Sewell in our expert Sports Law and Corporate & Commercial
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The above is accurate as at 5 May 2026.
The information above may be subject to change. The content of this note should not be considered legal advice, and each matter should be considered on a case-by-case basis.
