When the most decorated 100-metre sprinter ever stepped to the line for a final time, she told herself what she knew: that she was prepared, powerful and this race was hers—for her. The next handful of seconds were to honour everything that had brought her to this moment.Green, yellow and black hair whipping behind her—a self-proclaimed "daughter of the soil", who chose to wear the colours of her nation's flag for her final finish—gold-hued&nbsp;nails splayed in front of her, <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-celebrates-shelly-ann-fraser-pryce" target="_blank">Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce</a> exploded off the blocks in the World Athletics Championship final in a capacity-filled Japan National Stadium in Tokyo. She ended her 100-metre career in the same way she began racing 18 years ago in Japan—with fierce speed, strength and composure. It was a bold tribute to Jamaica, the nation whose unyielding support has carried her through two decades at the top of the sport.In her decades of dominance—from becoming the first Caribbean woman to win Olympic gold in the 100 metres in 2008, to returning as World Champion in 2019 after giving birth to her son, Zyon—Shelly-Ann has embodied the power of duality.&nbsp;The ability to have longevity in athletics's shortest, most intense discipline; exuding femininity and self-expression in a physically demanding sport; proving motherhood and greatness can coexist.What athletes everywhere, and especially young girls, can take from Shelly-Ann's lead: the courage to run your own race, on your terms. To trust that setbacks don't define you, only your response to them. And the assurance that, if you believe in yourself and work with discipline, harmony is possible. Dreams and family, career and legacy.For that and for the now 276 incredible races and finishing line moments, thank you, Shelly-Ann.Below, go behind the scenes of the GOAT's final meet days in Tokyo.

The shoes. The hair. The finish. At the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Shelly-Ann, a five-time world champion, ended her career her way.

Sofieke van Bilsen is a 29-year-old Dutch photographer with a passion for storytelling through imagery. She is the in-house photographer for the German women's national football team, and was team photographer for the German Olympic Team in Paris 2024. She works closely with Nike athletes such as Faith Kipyegon, Eliud Kipchoge and Sifan Hassan.In her photography, she aims to create compelling visual narratives, focusing on the deep connection between emotion and athleticism. She strives to capture the raw moments behind the scenes, the untold stories of the journey and everything in between, bringing the spirit of sport to life.Sofieke's personality creates instant connections with people, and she is loved by the athletes she works with. Her relaxed and enthusiastic personality complements an incredible skill level and the ability to work in high-pressure environments for athletes.

Sofieke van Bilsen

Photo essay

Icon Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Ran Her Final 100 Metre On Her Terms

Over the course of his career, LeBron James has shared his passion for the game globally, partnering with Nike to travel throughout Greater China during his offseason, galvanizing a nation in its love for basketball and hoops culture. Just as LeBron's career has evolved through different eras, his tours have represented different values over the many times he's visited since 2005. Below are some of his most memorable moments in the country.

2005–2009

LeBron began his debut tour in Beijing in August of 2005. He was invited to watch the awards ceremony of the Nike Battlegrounds tournament, but he'd depart as more than just a spectator. From the moment he stepped down in China, he believed his tour could become a cross-cultural exchange rooted in a shared love of hoops and a mission to inspire the next generation of young players in China. "Basketball is not only a sport, it's also a bridge that connects people", he said.&nbsp;"This is a great learning experience for everyone. I hope I can continue to help grow the game globally and inspire the youth in China to reach their dreams".

LeBron's legacy in China is woven into special China-specific iterations of his signature footwear. In 2007, LeBron James appeared alongside NIKE, Inc.'s then-President & CEO Mark Parker to debut his Nike Zoom LeBron V "China" colourway.

LeBron returned to Beijing in 2009 after his MVP season, where he enjoyed a hero's welcome. As part of his trip, he donated equipment and provided scholarships for the Zhenhua School, a school for the children of migrant workers in suburban Beijing.

To celebrate his season, LeBron was presented with an exclusive pair of the Nike Air Max LeBron VII, featuring a Shenyang-inspired design dubbed "Loyalty" created by the local artist Ray Lei, and a Shanghai-inspired design dubbed "Family", created by the local artist Sic.

2011–2015

LeBron embraced his role as a global ambassador for the game, focusing on the opportunity to inspire China's young players. In 2011, his tour expanded to eight days over four cities, promoting grassroots basketball through a series of skill clinics and tournaments.

In 2012, with a fresh gold medal to pair with his championship ring, LeBron James made a triumphant arrival in Beijing to kick off a four-day tour as part of the&nbsp;Find Your Greatness campaign. "Greatness is defined by how much you want to put into what you do", said LeBron. "Greatness comes with victory. It also comes with being able to come back from adversity".

In 2013, LeBron returned to China with plenty to celebrate: his second straight NBA championship and MVP awards for both the regular season and the Finals.

In 2014, LeBron James was the first mentor to announce the roster for the Nike RISE, designed to help players raise their competitive game and improve their skill.

In 2015, Nike RISE 2015 evolved with LED Courts and motion-tracking drills to create a pinnacle training experience, teach the fundamentals of basketball and push the boundaries of sports training.

An emotional finale saw four players chosen to represent China at the World Streetball Championships.

2016–2019

After winning another NBA title in 2016, LeBron entered Guangzhou to a massive championship parade, the streets flanked by tens of thousands of fans, many of them in Cavs #23 jerseys. It was a signal for just how widely James's legacy had expanded throughout Asia.&nbsp;His More Than an Athlete campaign inspired young players to see basketball as one of many tools for affecting social change.

After a warm welcome from thousands of fans, he spent most of his time in Beijing working out with and coaching members of the Chinese Junior National basketball team.

Visiting primary schools throughout Beijing, LeBron shared his personal basketball experiences with young athletes, emphasising the role that hard work, dedication and self-belief played in his path to success.

In 2018, the first day of his "More Than an Athlete" tour in Shanghai began with a panel discussion with students at the Shanghai Theatre&nbsp;Academy, and ended with a park shootaround. Hundreds of fans gathered outside the court to watch him play, hoping to catch a glimpse of the icon.

This month, LeBron flew to China for his "Forever King Tour", his 15th in the country and marking the 20th anniversary of tours in Asia. There, he joined some of the world's most passionate hoopers and basketball fans, reiterating his commitment to giving back to the game across the world.

Over the course of his career, LeBron James has shared his passion for the game globally, partnering with Nike to travel throughout Greater China during his offseason, galvanizing a nation in its love for basketball and hoops culture.

Journey of an icon: 20 years of LeBron James in China

Hours of powering up steep ascents and navigating gnarly descents. Whipping mountain winds, glaring direct sun and biting evening temps. Getting mentally right with the fact that the next aid station is far, far away. Ultra trail running can sound like a gruelling, relentless sport reserved for the wildest, most hardcore athletes among us.According to our <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-acg-all-conditions-racing-department" target="_blank">All Conditions Racing Department</a> runners—six of whom just conquered pinnacle UTMB races across the French, Italian and Swiss Alps, on trails spanning 15 to 174 kilometres, with elevation gains of 1,200 to nearly 10,000 metres—the grit, determination, joy and freedom trail running gives you are worth every ounce of work. See for yourself.

<h3>ROSS GOLLAN</h3>Race: Experience Trail Courmayeur (ETC); 15K with 1,200m elevation gain Global finish rank: 29th

<h3>MARIE NIVET</h3>Race: ETC; 15K with 1,200m elevation gain Global women's finish rank: 7th

CESARE MAESTRIRace: ETC; 15K with 1,200m elevation gain Global finish rank: 2nd

<h3>BAPTISTE COATANTIEC</h3>Race: Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB); 174K with nearly 10,000m elevation gain Global finish rank: 11th

<h3>ANTHONY COSTALES</h3>Race: Courmayeur—Champex—Chamonix (CCC); 101K with more than 6,050m elevation gain Global finish rank: 15th

<h3>DREW HOLMEN</h3>Race: CCC; 101K with more than 6,050m elevation gain Global finish rank: 3rd

Powering up steep ascents. Navigating gnarly descents. Whipping mountain winds. Ultra trail running is a relentless sport. But the payoff is well worth the grind.

Ultra trail running can take everything you've got—and give you even more

Davis Jones is a Nike innovation, design and product editor. His areas of interest include sport science, performance product design and the history of sport.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Born and raised in Oregon, Davis attended the University of San Diego. Upon graduating, he worked as an editorial intern for Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He was a writer and editor for Surfer magazine before returning to the Pacific Northwest to work for Nike in 2018.&nbsp;

Davis Jones

John Shiel photographs the truth of Innovation—unpolished, intimate and in progress. He explores the choreography of art, science and athletes, documenting an honest record of Nike Innovation's inner life, covering the rebels, dreamers and makers who are forging the future of sport.He leads the Creative Studio in Nike Innovation, tracking the next frontier of Innovation stories that have the power to inspire athletes everywhere.

John Shiel

In July 2026, more than 10 hours into her race, ultra runner and ACG pro <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/trail-runner-yao-miao-is-running-down-new-goals-with-acg" target="_blank">Yao Miao</a> hit the final wall. Specifically, the eleventh and penultimate section of Camins d'Hèr, a 110-kilometre ultra race in Spain's Pyrenees mountain range, which passes through the small localities of Arties to Escunhau, a distance of about 5 kilometres. The stretch is a gruelling, exposed vertical climb that squeezes every last drop of mental fortitude out of a runner before they tackle the remaining 8 kilometres to the finish. Even the fittest athletes reliably bonk when they reach it.For Miao, the wall was simply one more obstacle to climb. She'd later cross the finishing line, fist raised in the air, completing the race in 13:04:34, the course's fastest-ever time in the women's field. Yao Miao is one of the most accomplished racers of her generation. She's one of only six runners worldwide to win two different UTMB finals events. But she also had a secret tool in her race prep: insights from the Nike Innovation Farm Team, an 18-strong ultra-runner cohort who trained in a four-month residency at the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/nike-sport-research-lab-environmental-chambers" target="_blank">Nike Sport Research Lab</a> (NSRL) in Beaverton, Oregon.

A Nike team of applied physiologists combined the data from Miao's springtime visit to the NSRL with a four-hour resilience run done by the Farm Team and crunched the numbers through a predictive model to map out the pace that would land her in a hypothetical finish window. They shared the formula with Miao in the weeks before Camins d'Hèr. The team estimated she'd finish between 12:37 and 13:44—and to put ink on a specific number, 13:09. She'd cross the arch in Vielha within five minutes of that prediction.Thanks in large part to the data from the Farm Team, there was less guesswork to the milestones Miao needed to hit. The group acted like a squad of teammates in her corner, bringing a sharper clarity to her plan.

And that was the whole point. The 15-week Nike Innovation Farm Team, which kicked off in April at Nike's Philip H. Knight Campus, was created to help Nike innovators uncover the levers behind ultra-endurance running.The science of endurance performance under two hours is fairly well understood. The longer a runner goes, however, the less we know about what causes some to succeed and others to crumble. The standard factors of endurance performance become more dynamic—and unpredictable—especially in ultra-distance mountain running. The distances are outrageous. The terrain shape-shifts in a flash, covering high-altitude climbs and steep descents. There's a mix of unforgiving surfaces, and the weather can change rapidly. What's more, a race can last for days, and it's largely a solo endeavour. You're likely to be running by yourself for extended periods of time, sometimes for hours. The opportunities for a scientist to intervene naturally and observe how the runner's body is negotiating the work are few.

What the Farm Team gave Nike researchers was a rare 15-week window to dig into all aspects of the sport and, maybe most importantly, its elusive performance enhancer: resilience."In a race, everyone slows down over 13 hours", says Brett Kirby, PhD, senior principal scientist of applied performance innovation in the Nike Sport Research Lab. "The winner is the one who slows down the least. In other words, the most resilient runner wins. We wanted to study resilience in three main ways: physiologically, biomechanically and psychologically".With the Farm Team, NSRL scientists wanted to create a realistic, uninterrupted environment to gather enough data to better understand this resilience. The bonus was that the outcomes of their studies should help all runners fine-tune their training. This could be picking the right programme (e.g. what could help you blast through an uphill sprint in hour eight of a race) or the right product to wear for a race course. This scientific foundation for new product solutions extends beyond the pros too, and can help any runner who hits the wall of the mountain and wants to break through.

Nike's vast backyard in the Pacific Northwest became the Farm Team's research centre. They were embedded in the NSRL and set free in the surrounding Portland area, including the sprawling Forest Park trails and the stunning routes in the Columbia River Gorge.&nbsp;"Time under effort is the variable that makes or breaks an ultra runner's race", says Brad Winn, lead researcher of applied innovation, who served as the programme's head coach over the 15-week protocol. "Time is also the critical piece on the research side. We wanted to spend as much of it with these athletes as possible".

The programme's name came from two places. One borrows from the farm team concept popular in sports like baseball, where a farm team serves as an important talent pipeline for a franchise. The other comes from one of Nike's foundational employees, Jeff Johnson. In the mid '90s, he and Stanford track coach Vin Lananna co-founded the esteemed sub-elite distance-running track team, in many ways a precursor to today's track clubs. Both inspirations draw from the same purpose: to explore how a dedicated pipeline can—through athlete talent and the exploration of their potential—improve a larger community.There were 18 spots—nine men and nine women—up for grabs in the Farm Team's squad, and runners applied online beginning in March 2026. Criteria for the programme was strict. Selected runners needed to complete all 15 weeks of training and have the ability to run for up to four hours at a sub-elite pace. Nike Innovation received thousands of applications and had the daunting task of selecting the handful who would be invited to relocate full-time to Beaverton.

The residency's embedded nature was undoubtedly a challenge. "Moving away for four months has been difficult, on top of working a full-time job", says Alec Hewett, a Farm Team runner who works as a senior manager of national teams at USA Triathlon and is in his first year of marriage. "But the sacrifices were still a no-brainer for me and my wife. Having full support from her and from my job has been awesome".The 18 runners were divided into two cohorts, each focusing on a different training protocol over 10 weeks. One was a concentric-dominant, more traditional uphill programme (concentric refers to the shortening of the muscle under force). The other was an eccentric-dominant programme, or one that focused on the lengthening of the muscle under force, translating into downhill workouts. In addition to run-specific workouts, both groups applied their concentric or eccentric focus to assigned strength training workouts. The eccentric groups, for example, would do lifts like descending lunges, paying close attention to the lowering of the weights, whereas the concentric group did a contrasting lift, like a weighted step-up.&nbsp;

The team was given a full array of Nike's diagnostic tools in the NSRL to help scientists better grasp what was happening under the bonnet of each runner. For example, every runner's gait was analysed through <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/nike-nsrl-form" target="_blank">Nike Form</a>, an algorithmic tool developed in-house by the NSRL to study a runner's unique biomechanics. Through this data, scientists could study the athletes' mechanics during long runs, how training impacted their mechanics over the course of the study, how their body interacted with footwear over time and how race simulations impacted fatigue. After 10 weeks of training, each baseline test was measured again, charting how runners progressed their fitness according to their programme.&nbsp;The Farm Team played an important role in testing some of the latest breakthroughs coming out of Nike Innovation, like the recently announced Picklejus, the new ACG model with a cushioning system optimised for big-mountain racing. The squad tested the shoes in the lab, trialling Picklejus during a challenging four-hour treadmill test with changes in both speed and gradient to simulate mountain-like terrain.The team's comments on the shoe and, specifically, their ability to describe in clear terms what they needed to feel from it, helped show what was working well. For example, many runners voiced a need for protective stability without sacrificing snappiness for uphill surges. The Farm Team also tested apparel prototypes that ACG pros like Miao wore for her Camins d'Hèr race.With a trove of scientific data over the 15-week residency (the Nike Form sessions alone gathered some 13 gigabytes of data per runner), the insights move in all directions. They travel down to the general product level and move up to ACG's squad of pros, who are wringing every possible advantage out of their pre-race training, race-day strategy and post-race recovery.&nbsp;Take Caleb Olson. In October 2025, the NSRL Applied Performance Innovation teammates met with the Western States 100 winner for a mini camp in the desert of St. George, Utah, talking about his typical training and how he's preparing for UTMB. That exchange cued unanswered questions in trail running, especially the power of downhill running. Olson asked how he could run downhills at full effort rather than conserving energy for the last descent. That question was an impetus for Nike Innovation Farm Team training: to build a training regime that could fortify Olson's body. Nike Innovation teammates created Nike products that would give him an edge—the same products tested at length by the Farm Team cohort.

"Lab data doesn't win races", says Kirby. "Conversations do. The data doesn't mean anything if we can't connect it to meaningful relationships with our athletes".The Farm Team programme wrapped in late July. Nike scientists now have their own mountain to climb in sorting through the data, and some intriguing results are bubbling up. One of them, says Kirby, is the improvement in physiological, biomechanical and psychological testing in the eccentric training group, which doesn't resemble a traditional, well established fitness programme. On the mega ramp outside the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/lebron-james-innovation-center-nike-sport-research-lab" target="_blank">LeBron James Innovation Center</a>, while the runners completed punishing repeats, some of them assigned to the downhill regimen barely felt like they were breaking a sweat. This gives credibility to a convention-bucking point in the world of training: eccentric tolerance is a training variable that must be worked into your plan.While the study's conclusions are ongoing, the takeaways are immediate. And that brings us back to Yao Miao, Camins d'Hèr and the wall.

The morning Miao began the race, she had a dedicated physiological cheat sheet at her fingertips, translated into pacing charts by the second over the technical course. It was like a menu at each stop describing which interventions to take, like whether to apply sun cream, what fuel to eat and why, as well as researched recommendations for what product to wear. This data-backed advice came from Farm Team insights.Miao hit the cooling station at the eleventh stage. The Nike Innovation team had prescribed options: an ice bandana, cold water to pour over her head, salt tablets. They also created a cue card for her technique to help her efficiently scale the ascent: "Head down, shortest stride, poles fully engaged". Included on that card was a concise summary of the plan to finish the race. It summed up in 27 words what Miao was feeling after more than 10 hours of peak physical exhaustion: "Final wall. 57 minutes. Heart rate will be 96% the whole time; that IS the plan. You will feel awful; everyone does. From the top, only 8km remain". Nobody knows exactly what will happen during the twists and turns of an ultra race. But thanks to residency programmes like the Farm Team, there's less mystery in knowing what makes an ultra runner tick.&nbsp;"The people who know athletes best are the ones who spend the most time with them—it's that simple", says Winn. "There's no better way to do that than bringing them here to our house, inviting them in and doing everything we can to support them".

See how athlete insights from the new residency programme help create better products for every ultra runner.

Innovation

Trail running

How the Nike Innovation Farm Team Is Pushing the Science of Ultra Running

About Nike—stories from inside NIKE, Inc.

Words: <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="/company/people/rachel-cavanaugh-contributing-writer" target="_blank" class="ql-size-small">Rachel Cavanaugh</a> Images: <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="/company/people/dan-vernon-contributing-photographer" target="_blank" class="ql-size-small">Dan Vernon</a> and <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="/company/people/sofieke-van-bilsen-contributing-photographer" target="_blank" class="ql-size-small">Sofieke van Bilsen</a>

The boldest ideas don't begin with guarantees. They begin with a dream—and an audacious commitment to make it real. That's exactly how Nike FlyWeb, the company's newest performance material, came to life. The first-of-its-kind 3D-printing innovation was born through years of experimentation and a resolve to do what had never been done before.&nbsp;Nike FlyWeb represents a radical shift in how performance apparel is made and what it can feel like.Unlike traditional athletic apparel, which is typically knit or woven from yarn, FlyWeb is made from TPU—a soft, pliable polymer—and 3D-printed to form the desired product.&nbsp;Three-dimensional printing is nothing new for the footwear industry or Nike. "This is, however, the first time Nike has applied the manufacturing method to high-performance sports apparel for an athlete", says Janett Nichol, Nike VP of innovation.&nbsp;

"What works on a shoe doesn't just translate to something you wear on your body", she explains. "It took years of re-engineering—not just the materials but the design approach itself—to make FlyWeb feel soft, breathable and beautiful enough for apparel".The first product Nike design teams chose to tackle in the new material? One that hasn't changed in material form since its inception: the bra.The Nike FlyWeb Bra is an ode to minimalism. The FlyWeb material is one single, seamless layer, built through computational design so that Nike designers could control the fit and support down to the millimetre, adjusting density, airflow and stretch across different zones of the garment."We had to re-engineer everything—dismantling what we knew, then putting it back together—to make it wearable next to skin", says Nichol.

The result is something athletes have never felt before. The Nike FlyWeb Bra doesn't just reduce bulk or manage moisture more efficiently. It creates an entire sensory shift. For women athletes, it eliminates the multi-layer barrier found in most sports bras, unlocking airflow and comfort in ways traditional construction simply can't."It's soft. It's light—so light, it feels like you're not wearing anything at all", adds Nichol. "That's the number 1 thing testers tell us: it disappears on your body, yet somehow delivers incredible support".That support doesn't come from compression or layering but rather from the structure itself: the computationally designed pattern is specifically engineered to be denser in areas that need more containment.

Nike FlyWeb fluidly engages when the athlete moves, creating responsive athletic support without relying on seams, straps or extra material. That means pure freedom of movement."You can actually feel the air on your chest", says Nichol. "Most women have never experienced that while running. We don't even think about it because it's just not something we've ever expected to feel".On 26 June, in Paris, Faith Kipyegon will attempt to become the first woman in history to break the 4-minute mile, an effort that's been dubbed "Breaking4". And as she takes to the track for the legacy-defining attempt, she'll be wearing a one-of-a-kind sports bra made from the breakthrough material.

Nike FlyWeb material will debut during Faith Kipyegon's historic attempt to break the 4-minute mile.

Because of its light, breathable design, Faith's Nike FlyWeb Bra will help her body stay cooler during her all-out sprint.

Faith's FlyWeb Bra has a gossamer-soft hand feel and weight that's barely there.

It was her ambition—and the scale of that goal—that helped push Nike FlyWeb from bra prototype to bespoke product."Everyone was a thought partner; we really put our heads together", says Lisa Gibson, senior product manager, apparel innovation. "And when you have a team working in synergy, believing in Faith and this moment, that's when things start to magically unlock. It's that Nike magic".

FlyWeb's debut isn't only a material milestone. It's the start of a new era in how performance apparel is made.What began as a moonshot of its own—an experiment to reimagine how we think about apparel—quickly accelerated into a breakthrough once Kipyegon's goal came into view.&nbsp;"We knew that it was an opportunity for us to look at what we had in our arsenal and what we could really use to help her break this goal", says Nichol. "We realised a gift had been dropped in our laps and it was up to us to rise to the moment".Now&nbsp;that the material is here, its potential is beginning to unfold.&nbsp;"We're just scratching the surface", says Nichol. "This is a true unlock, not just for bras but for how we design and build high-performance apparel going forward. It opens the door to entirely new ideas for how athletes experience sport through what they wear".

Featherweight, soft and breathable, Nike FlyWeb—a first-of-its-kind 3D-printing innovation—is a sports material like no other.

Feature

The future of performance apparel is here

What would the back of your athletic trading card say? That's what Nike's Baseline testing is for: a way for all athletes to understand their physical tools.What It DoesNike's Baseline testing, made up of five assessments, is as foundational as it sounds. The assessments are borrowed from the worlds of biomechanics, physiotherapy and exercise science, and can be completed in a matter of minutes: a 3D body scan, a foot scan, a barefoot pressure test, an ankle range of motion test and countermovement jumps. In many ways, Baseline is the most ubiquitous tool that the Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL) offers. Every professional athlete who visits the NSRL has the option of doing the testing, no matter their itinerary. But that doesn't mean it's a resource that's exclusive to a precious few. Baseline is the one test series in the NSRL that's also open to every Nike employee.Considered together, the test results form the baseline of a person's athletic profile—how powerful they are, how mobile they are, how explosive they are and other traits. Knowing these attributes gives Nike researchers, scientists and designers a clearer picture of how to serve an athlete's needs.

Baseline helps provide foundational knowledge of an athlete's body, connecting anatomical structure, foot and lower-body mechanics and functional movement.

The three-dimensional foot scale measures foot shape during normal standing. The reported sizing can be a starting point for shoe or product fit.

Barefoot walking helps asses areas of high and low pressure underfoot. Seeing these areas of elevated pressure can help uncover an athlete's gait pattern.

Range of motion in the ankles and the toes, tested in different directions, can help determine joint function.

Performance jumps can be an indication of lower-body strength, power and asymmetry.

Data from Baseline testing goes beyond describing an athlete's current state. It can also shed light on an athlete's past, like what sport they played or what injuries they sustained.

What It Helps Us DoJackie Shea, Baseline operator, Innovation, says Nike researchers selected each of the&nbsp;Baseline tests to set an experiential, diagnostic tone for every athlete interaction within the NSRL. Before the opening of the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/inside-the-nike-sports-research-lab-lebron-james-innovation-center" target="null">LeBron James Innovation Center</a> in October 2021, athlete engagement in the lab was largely reserved for testing footwear and apparel prototypes. There's nothing wrong with that, says Shea, a former D1 athlete who studied kinesiology and exercise science. But that process largely treats the athlete as a test pilot secondary to the vehicle—the product—they are steering. "We wanted Baseline to help bring athletes to the centre of the lab, distinct from product", she says.&nbsp;Through their Baseline results, athletes can see nuances in their athletic profile. Are you geared towards slower endurance or more explosive power? Your vertical jump results might point you towards an answer. Does your anatomy from the 3D body scan suggest you have any imbalances in your proportions? These results are valuable to athletes for their own sake. You don't need to test a product to gain a better awareness of your own body.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

After guiding more than 4,000 athletes through Baseline, Shea has learned to spot trends in physical profiles among different sports while offering remedies via other Nike tools. For example, runners tend to have weak posterior strength, so in their back, glutes and hamstrings. They stand the most to gain from consistent weight training, provided in the hundreds of workouts from the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.nike.com/ntc-app" target="_blank">Nike Training Club App</a>. Athletes who play lateral sports, like basketball, tend to have limited mobility, so a Nike yoga class at a nearby store might be just what they need to balance out.Key to Shea's job is a fair amount of myth-busting when discussing test results. An athlete might comment on how running hurts their knees, but when they test their ankle mobility, the athlete grimaces, looking stiff as a board. They test their gait on <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/nike-nsrl-form" target="_blank">NSRL Form</a>—a recent addition to the test line-up—and are clearly overstriding. With each step, most of their force is displaced through their knees and their back instead of transferred evenly through their body. Running doesn't hurt their knees—the way they run hurts their knees. Baseline results help give athletes a course of action for what troubles them the most.&nbsp;

Baseline does play a role in ensuring that Nike researchers test products efficiently and orient them towards real solutions. For example, Baseline results are a common way for NSRL researchers to recruit for new studies. An athlete with strong results in explosive vertical jumping power is an ideal fit for a future basketball jumping study that tests a new hoops silhouette. A distance runner, on the other hand, might find a steady-state treadmill run in the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/nike-sport-research-lab-environmental-chambers" target="_blank">climate chambers</a> a better match, which in turn can help scientists evaluate the latest sweat-wicking material innovations like <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-aero-fit-official-images" target="null">Aero-FIT</a>. As more and more athletes do Baseline, the lab's research specificity gets sharper and sharper. The same is true for product development.&nbsp;That process is ongoing. A Baseline evaluation is never the end of the story. It's the beginning of a conversation.&nbsp;"Baseline creates relationships with athletes that aren't passive, but active", says Shea. "The conversations between athletes and their test results are in a constant cycle with each other. One of my favourite parts in this job is getting to ask follow-up questions. You're showing some imbalance between your left-leg power and your right leg. Did you have some kind of injury to your leg early on? Tell me more. There's always more to every athlete's story".

What would the back of your athletic trading card say? That's what the NSRL's Baseline testing is for: a way for all athletes to understand their physical tools.

Sport science

Next Level

The NSRL Baseline Testing

A single Nike Aero-FIT shirt begins as recycled yarn on a spool. Before it reaches an athlete on the world's biggest stage, it will move through a specialised creation process—knit on a proprietary circular machine; dyed in precise lots; and extracted, finished, sublimated, cut, printed and hand-stitched panel by panel.&nbsp;&nbsp;Each step exists to protect the performance built into the material itself, a highly texturised knit that combines open and closed mesh zones to move air across the body, lift the fabric off the skin and deliver more than twice the airflow of legacy Nike fabrics. That's not nothing during a summer of sport that's delivered some of the hottest conditions footballers have ever seen.&nbsp;Fitting, then, that <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-aero-fit-official-images" target="_blank">Aero-FIT</a> is also Nike's first elite performance apparel made from 100 percent textile waste. Nike's contract manufacturing suppliers use a textile-to-textile system enabled by advanced chemical recycling, creating a circular process that produces recycled polyester yarn as good as virgin material.&nbsp;That material comes together through a blend of technology and human expertise, yarn and machine, hand and eye, made for the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/collections/nike-football-unveils-2026-federation-kits-featuring-aero-fit-performance-cooling-technology" target="_blank">athletes taking the pitch</a> and the fans standing with them in the same colours.See exactly how here.

When you're playing for your country, nothing should distract you, least of all heat and sweat.

Football

The Making of Aero-FIT: The Material Innovation Keeping Footballers Cooler on the Pitch

See What Drives Us

Stories from inside NIKE, Inc.

Story Landing

Prototype to Podium: Jenn Lichter on How She Won Western States

Short Stories

At Philip H. Knight Campus, in Beaverton, Oregon, the day doesn't start at dawn. On this crisp autumn Tuesday morning, employees arrive before the sun, jogging around campus or grinding through reps in the weight room. In studio 4 of the Nike Sports Center gym, a crew of about 20 are warming up for a 7am HIIT class.&nbsp;One of the class-goers is CEO & President <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/company/people/elliott-hill" target="_blank">Elliott Hill</a>, both regular patron and proselytiser of the campus' facilities. This morning, he's front-row, dead-centre of class, two dumbbells at his feet. The workout playlist is straight bangers, and Hill is matching the music's energy and chatting to his neighbours, asking about their Portland Marathon finish times, trying to distract them from the last 10 seconds of a plank. He's gregarious and in high spirits despite the early hour, as upbeat and encouraging as a cheerleader and coach rolled into one. After class, an employee takes the opportunity to reintroduce herself. She and Hill had met once before, she explains, while she was working in retail in Louisville, Kentucky. He'd given her some career advice: if she wanted to advance at Nike, she needed to look two jobs ahead, assess what skills were needed and commit to learning them. Now, 12 years later, she's a product line manager for Nike Pro Training Apparel. Hill shakes her hand and says he still stands by that advice—success, in his eyes, is about filling out your toolbox, not just waiting for people to hand you the tools. Both of them are proof of what happens when one does.

One of Hill's proudest accomplishments on campus is getting more employees back in the gyms, he says. "We're a sports company, a movement company, and I want people to feel and see that".

On any given weekday morning, you'll find Hill in the Philip H. Knight Campus gyms, living the company's mantra to make sport a daily habit.

"I think we have one of the most beautiful, simple and aspirational mission statements that exists", Hill says. "'To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world.' Finally, I really love the word 'athlete*' with an asterisk. There's a statement behind it. 'If you have a body, you are an athlete.' It challenges us to serve every human being. All 8 billion people are athletes".

Hill's time at NIKE, Inc., from intern to company leader, has been so distinctive and remarkable that <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/elliotthillnike/" target="_blank">his career ladder</a> was the rare LinkedIn page to go viral. This October, he's hit one year in the CEO role. It's been a good year, in Hill's eyes—Nike's <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/faith-kipyegon-nike-breaking4-journey" target="_blank">shown up for athletes</a>, debuted <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-vomero-plus-vomero-premium-official-images" target="_blank">fresh product</a>, reignited its marketplace relationships—but more than that, it's been a promising stepping stone. The best is yet to come, Hill says; as much momentum as Nike's had, he still gives the company a 6 out of 10 for fulfilling its potential. "I do celebrate the wins, and I make sure people enjoy them—but I am quick to move to, 'OK, what could we have done better?' Or, 'OK, great job. Now, let's get going,&nbsp;'cause we got so much more work to do'". As any CEO would be, Hill is highly attuned to the dogged complaints in recent years that Nike has stopped innovating, and he's eager to disprove them. He thrives on a challenge, he says, and knows that true innovation is born from tension, not stability. Sitting outside the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://lebronjamesinnovationcenter.nike.com/" target="_blank">LeBron James Innovation Center</a> after his HIIT class, he notices two employees walking into the building. He beckons them over—hollers, actually—and asks about their progress working on new boots. Restoring the pride employees have in the company was important: if they didn't believe in themselves, no one else would either. "If we're gonna make baseball boots, make the best baseball boots", implores Hill. "If we're gonna make football boots, make the best football boots". Eager to flex on their work, they invite him to judge it for himself: Alpine conference room, next week. Hill repeats the location and time back to them. It's a date.&nbsp;

One year in, Hill, 62, has made it his mission to <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/elliott-hill-nike-interview" target="_blank">reignite Nike's reputation</a> as a trailblazing sports company and a leader of innovation—not merely a product company, but an ideas company. And he's adamant that those ideas be rooted in sport, with athletes at the centre. He says he's bullish for the future, and each day seems to give him a new reason to be. Take today's employee chat on boots. "They were so proud to say, 'Look at what I got coming.' That's what I want", says Hill. For people to not just work hard, but to also have the steely conviction that what they're making is good, worth bragging about. To know winning is winning together. "I want people to feel a sense of pride in their work, in their craft, in their service to the athlete".&nbsp; He sees this charge as a group activity, something to which he holds himself and everyone else at the company accountable. Motivation, for Hill, is something of an extreme sport: he leads with an enthusiasm so contagious, it makes even the naysayers devout. He recruits you into dreaming bigger and better, insisting that winning as a team is the only way to win—while still recognising and celebrating the team players. It's the forest and the trees. "The way he makes everybody in the room feel special is just unbelievable", says Dan Lanning, the Head Coach of the University of Oregon football team. "I remember walking away from our first interaction, telling my wife, 'This guy's gonna make it tick.'"

He brings that same personable attentiveness to Nike athletes. You can't serve the athlete if you're not connected to them, and Hill stresses the importance of building genuine relationships. "It's important to know that we're watching", he says, punctuating his words with gentle karate chops atop the table outside the LeBron James Innovation Center. "Great relationships are built on mutual trust and respect, over time, from showing up. So first game, you get in the ring and you want me to go? I'll be there". No need to take his word for it. He picks up his work phone—not to be confused with his personal phone, also on the table, in an identical case—and pulls up a text thread with the New York Liberty's <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/sabrina-ionescu-exclusive-interview" target="_blank">Sabrina Ionescu</a>. (When a GOAT athlete called him earlier in the morning, it was on his personal line.) The thread is several scrolls long; they're sending each other photos, Hill is checking in after games. Most of their chatter is about the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-sabrina-3-official-images-sabrina-ionescu" target="_blank">Sabrina 3</a>, the WNBA player's latest Nike signature shoe, released earlier this year. He opens a photo from 17 May, the day of the Liberty season opener against the Las Vegas Aces. Hill; his wife, Gina; Ionescu; Tom Peddie, GM/VP of North America; and his wife, Sharon, put their feet together, showing off a circle of Nikes. "I really value Elliott's approach", says Ionescu. "I always feel my voice is being heard when I share with him what is important to me to grow my business. He knows how to connect with people on a human level, and I couldn't be more grateful for him to be back in the Nike family".

Hill regularly reaches out to Nike athletes, congratulating them on their wins. When the New York Liberty took the WNBA title last year, Hill immediately congratulated Nike athlete Sabrina Ionescu, one of many exchanges in their scrolls-long text thread.

Circle up: clockwise from top, Sabrina Ionescu in the turquoise Sabrina 3, Elliott Hill in the Kobe 7, Gina Hill in the black-and-white Sabrina 3, Tom Peddie in the white A'One, Sharon Peddie in the pink A'One.

Hill wants athletes to feel not only seen, but also supported, and certain that they are in good hands. At the Nike Football Summit in June, Brazilian football legend and 31-year Nike athlete Ronaldo (R9) found himself with the other top footballers of all time: Vinícius Júnior, Kerolin, Didier Drogba, Matheus Cunha, Edgar Davids—plus Hill, who gave them a rousing pep talk. "Elliott giving us a rallying speech on how important we were to the company and how significant our contribution to the team was—it made us feel special, valued and inspired", says R9.In Hill's mind, those feelings needed to cascade to restoring external relationships too. So this past year, he's been working the phone. Almost immediately after becoming CEO, he called NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to ensure the extension of Nike's licensing and kit deal through 2038. Next up were calls to retail partners like DICK'S Sporting Goods&nbsp;and JD Sports, partnerships that had weakened during the company's focus on direct-to-consumer. No longer: those wholesalers, Hill says, are a crucial element not only of sales, but of product feedback.&nbsp;This outreach matters, says Ed&nbsp;Stack, executive chairman&nbsp;of DICK'S Sporting Goods&nbsp;and Foot Locker, who's known Hill for more than 25 years. "Elliott tells it like it is, and his transparency builds trust that fosters a great business relationship", says Stack. "Elliott's greatest impact to Nike is that Nike now believes it can be Nike again, and I can guarantee that its wholesale partners now share the same belief".&nbsp;

Later that morning, Hill walks around campus, pointing out changes he's implemented. Coming out of a 2019 retirement to take the helm last year, he says he knew employees needed a cultural change. To feel it, he thought, they needed to see it. He got the fountain that runs along the Sebastian Coe building turned back on, "because it signals that the water's running, that we're back in our flow". Company adages have been turned tangible: giant-letter installations of Nike Maxims like "DO THE RIGHT THING" and "WIN AS A TEAM" are displayed throughout campus, as well as a sleek digital clock that counts down to major sports events like the 2026 Winter Olympics and the World Cup. Sport is always imminent, and Hill doesn't want employees to forget that. Any second of any day, athletes are somewhere training. Cities are preparing. Fans are anticipating. "We gotta get focused, so we're always preparing ourselves", he says. All change has to start from within, and one of Hill's primary focuses has been establishing a fresh <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/company" target="_blank">senior leadership team</a>, many of whom are NIKE, Inc. veterans. Most notably, Hill's restructured the company to organise by sport (running, basketball, football and more), instead of by women's, men's and kids. The reorganisation and strategy reset—the "Sport Offence"—allows teams to garner specific insights about athletes and use them to drive innovation and storytelling. "We have small teams who are, in each of those segments, trying to understand their core consumer", says Hill, pointing out the difference, say, between where a Nike basketball consumer shops and where a Jordan one does. "That's a way to take $47 billion of revenue, break it down by sport, and then hold each of those sports responsible for revenue, margin and market share".Hill moves briskly, even after the vigorous class, equal parts anticipation of what's to come and satisfaction with what's come so far, fuelled by passion and the overnight oats he packed himself for post-workout. One of his proudest campus accomplishments, he says, has been getting more people in the company gyms. It isn't uncommon for employees, on their way to a meeting or taking a kombucha break, to run into Hill, who is likely to encourage them to get a workout in. When he started as CEO, he realised that the company's state-of-the-art gym facilities were largely empty, in part because employees weren't allowed to bring their children. He invited families in and started working on bringing back extracurricular activities for kids, like the erstwhile swim programme and intramural sports. With his push, the gyms are filling back up. Case in point: that morning, before class, he walked through rows of treadmills and barbell and weight spaces, in use. Nike's ethos doesn't end with the consumer: sport should propel the lives of employees too.&nbsp;

Elliott Hill presents a custom Nike Breaking4 Jacket to world champion runner Faith Kipyegon, who, with Nike's help, attempted to break the 4-minute mile in June.

Ann Miller, EVP Global Sports Marketing, Elliott Hill and three-time WNBA champion and Nike athlete A'ja Wilson

Converse athlete Shai Gilgeous-Alexander with Hill and the new SHAI:001 signature shoe.

Hill catches up with South Carolina Gamecocks Coach Dawn Staley at Philip H. Knight Campus in Beaverton, Oregon.

Hill and football legend Ronaldo connected on campus last summer.

Celebrating sport with employees is a huge priority for Hill, pictured here playing a game between a Nike employee team (the Nike Knights) and Hill's Austin Moontowers baseball club this past summer.

"Sports—playing them, watching 'em, reading about them—have always been a part of my life", says Hill.

Hill ringing the bell for the final lap of The Nike Mile, a competitive race he brought back to crown the fastest employees at the company's Just Do It day in June.

For his part, Hill is an avid bicyclist and hiker, says his wife, Gina—but really, he's a fanatic about any sort of dynamic movement, be it bobsledding or tai chi. "He's super curious, and he's an open book: I'm vulnerable, maybe I won't succeed at this, but I'm going to give it a shot", she says. "Which is a great model for the greater Nike group, not being afraid to try new things and not being afraid to ask questions". Hill and Gina—who met at Nike—usually spend their mornings working out together, but today's HIIT class was a particularly special occasion. It was Gina's first day cleared to go back to exercise after remission. This previous April, six months into his tenure, Hill got a phone call he'll never forget: Gina had breast cancer. Hill was in New York and was due to meet with investors in 10 minutes. He informed the two leaders he was with; he cried. "Then you wipe your eyes and go and get your shit together", says Hill. Both he and Gina aren't ones to dwell or ruminate; they are doers, people of action. "We are big believers in control what you can control and try not to waste energy on the stuff that you can't control", he says. Gina had a double mastectomy, and Hill was by her side, driving her to appointments and procedures. Creating a culture where that balance can and should happen is a point of pride, says Hill. "I think it's good for the boss to say, 'You know what, I'm going to go take care of my wife. You guys get out there and roll.'"

Hill doesn't have the typical CEO pedigree. He grew up in a "blue collar, hard-working, culturally and racially diverse" neighbourhood in Austin, Texas, a latchkey kid with a single mother who was a school teacher. Before Nike, he graduated from Texas Christian University with a degree in kinesiology. "I don't want to be stereotypical, and I probably go to the extreme to break that—making fun of myself to get people to be able to connect with me on a personal level", he says, sipping from a cup of black coffee. (Once, he offered to shave his head if his team made budget for that fiscal year—and when it happened, he fulfilled his end of the bargain on a stage in front of them.)&nbsp; The method works: Gina says her husband is particularly attuned to making people feel comfortable, which comes from his bottomless curiosity. "He's just so open and so approachable that people of all levels feel like they can reach out to him". Growing up, sport was a way to shake the stigma of being the kid in the neighbourhood without a dad. "I always felt like I had something to prove to everybody, and that gets ingrained in your head", he says. He became an overachiever: student class president, president of his fraternity, Phi Delta Theta. "I was always the guy who was pushing myself, not just in sports". That competitive nature shepherded him through increasingly senior roles at Nike, and, along the way, his tenure dictated the course of his life.&nbsp; Including his second start. Even after four years of active retirement, Hill knew he wasn't completely out of the Nike game. He'd kept busy, serving as a business consultant and launching the Travis County Parks Foundation, a nonprofit organisation that supports parks in Austin, Texas. But his attention to the brand persisted, a mental muscle memory. He couldn't help himself from noting which brand of sneakers he'd see on people walking down the street. "Even when we were travelling for fun, he was like, 'Do you mind if we just walk through the Foot Locker and see what's going on?'" recalls Gina.

Which might be why his return has been so smooth. Retirement was nice, but: "I'm meant to grind. I'm meant to work", he says. "I'm meant to be part of a team, hopefully competing. And not just competing—winning". The task ahead—reestablishing the brand's cultural and market dominance—only excites him. It also keeps him quite busy: after he wraps up this interview, outside Nike's building dedicated to innovation, Hill's off to the Department of Nike Archives, a repository of more than five decades of company history. There, he'll look through a curated exhibit of Nike's presence at the Los Angeles 1984 Olympics—the sporting event that put Nike on the map—and get inspiration for how the brand can come out in force for LA28. He's the type of leader that knows you can't get where you're going unless you know where you've been. The past unlocks the future. Hill's got the key.&nbsp;

Jazmine Hughes is a writer, professor and public speaker. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, VOGUE, the Washington Post and New York magazine, among many others, where she has profiled people such as Viola Davis, Whoopi Goldberg, Usher, Lenny Kravitz, Questlove, Sarah Paulson and Julianne Moore. She has two National Magazine Awards. Jazmine has taught writing classes and workshops at Cornell University, The New School for Social Research and the Lower East Side Girls Club, and moderated panels for American Express, Netflix and the Tribeca Film Festival. She lives between New York City and Mexico.&nbsp;

Jazmine Hughes

Showing up for athletes, igniting employee pride, restoring relationships, stoking innovation. Elliott Hill has accomplished a lot in a year. He says there's far more to come.

One Year In, the CEO of Sport Is Taking Nike Back to Its Roots

This is where listening to the athlete is made manifest. The LeBron James Innovation Center is the home of the Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL), where Nike continues to set the pace for breakthroughs in sport science.

What It Does

<h3>What It Does</h3>The NSRL is built with nearly every training environment imaginable for Nike researchers to study sport performance. Its facilities include a state-of-the-art basketball court, a 200-metre endurance track, a 100-metre straightaway and an artificial-turf training pitch. All in service of capturing athletes in motion at full speed, the NSRL houses the world's largest motion-capture installation. Nearly 100 force plates help scientists study an athlete's interaction with their field of play, while four advanced climate chambers simulate the thermal environments experienced by athletes at temperatures from -20 degrees to 50 degrees Celsius.&nbsp;"This is the epicentre of where we work with athletes of all abilities, all backgrounds, all skills and all sports", says Matthew Nurse, PhD, VP, chief science officer at Nike.The NSRL has many goals. Here, Nike can understand the unique needs of athletes, contextualise challenges and advance breakthroughs across a spectrum of athletic, no matter the playing field.

What It Helps Us Do

<h3>What It Helps Us Do</h3>While athletes within the NSRL are being observed at play, other people are at play, too: testing, prototyping and innovating inside the LeBron James Innovation Center to help shape the future of sport. The community of Nike experts who work in the building are diversely talented, from biomechanics researchers to robotics experts, from computational designers to patent pros, all working together to uncover new frontiers in sport performance.&nbsp;Teammates work across disciplines, forming an expertise greater than the sum of individual talents."In the Innovation space, we take information from the NSRL, and we're able to look at different ways to solve an athlete's problem. It gets extremely interesting", says Janett Nichol, VP of Apparel and Advanced Digital Creation Studio. "In a conventional way of building a product, we would just go straight to a material, get a pattern, sew it and then that would be it. Here, we can go to anything from biology to chemistry to pushing the limits of a machine to create a very different experience with materials".Practically no corner of Nike is untouched by the creativity that's stoked in the LeBron James Innovation Center. And no design feature was an afterthought. Keeping sustainability at the forefront, the building features 908 solar panels on its roof, is powered by 100% renewable electricity and uses over 21,000 lbs of Nike Grind for the NSRL flooring. Other details are subtle callouts to Nike history. The entryway to the LeBron James Innovation Center mimics the dimensions of a shoebox. A replica Winnebago, housed inside the building as a meeting space, nods to Nike's early days of selling shoes.At over 750,000 square feet, the building is a beacon for athletic performance, just like the athlete for whom it's named. The mission of the researchers, scientists, designers, engineers, makers and artisans who work here is to make athletes better and make the world better for athletes.&nbsp;

This is where listening to the athlete is made manifest.

The LeBron James Innovation Center

Answering this question requires paying special attention to word choice, says Blaise Williams, senior sport scientist with the Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL). How Nike primarily evaluates "better" in running is in efficiency—or the degree to which someone can spend less energy doing the same movement. That's how teams inside the NSRL measure what being a better runner looks like. And in that regard, yes, anyone can become a better runner

<h3>How We Approach It</h3>Nike researchers use a range of tools to measure biomechanical efficiency. One of them is <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/stories/nike-nsrl-form" target="null">Nike Form</a>, a proprietary movement analysis tool that's available for athletes to trial right now at select Nike stores. With a two-minute run on the treadmill, Nike Form collects 150 data points across your body, from the tilt of your head down to the angle of your ankle, to give you a custom readout of your movement pattern. The tool's algorithm is designed to study how to optimise the way the entire body—not just the lower half—moves through space."NSRL Form isn't just a runner's tool. It's a running tool that gives athletes the power to know themselves", says Williams.This is where the power of self-awareness comes in. After your 2-minute treadmill run, NSRL Form produces a report with guidance for you;&nbsp;a few simple tweaks to your gait pattern can be all you need to become a more efficient runner. For example, let's say your step count is below the recommended 160 steps-per-minute cadence. By focusing on slightly quickening your step turnover, your other body positions will adjust accordingly, such as creating less of a forward lean, or repositioning your foot strike to better hit under your body's centre of gravity, which can lead to a more efficient gait pattern. Small adjustments are all a runner needs to help them cover more ground using less energy.&nbsp;

The beauty of a proprietary tool like Form, says Williams, is how its methods are applicable to human movement as a whole, not just running. The cues that can help a runner move more efficiently are the same cues that can help a basketball player or a footballer cover ground more efficiently.Some recommendations prescribed by NSRL Form can drastically change how a runner moves, like changing your degree of forward lean. Other factors of a runner's gait pattern are truly part of their biomechanical DNA, like the length of their levers. But no matter your body shape, the activity you do or the shoes you lace up, Williams says there are gains to be made from understanding your current form.&nbsp;"We're empowering athletes through information to make decisions based on how they move, regardless of the shoe they wear or even the sport they play".

One simple way, says our expert, is by finding out how efficiently you're running.

Ask a Sport Scientist

How Can I Become a Better Runner?

All of Nike's record-shattering, convention-breaking&nbsp;shoes began as prototypes. Many of them were disguised the same way: shrouded in black.American marathoner Conner Mantz remembers when he received the first prototype of the Vomero Premium in December of 2023. The upper was blacked out. The Air Zoom units sandwiched in the midsole foam, the shoe's most identifiable feature, were masked with tape.&nbsp;Holding the prototype, he points to a light outline across the midsole. "You can still see the tape lines", he says. "It was to keep people from seeing the Air Zoom units while I went on my long runs".This step in the prototyping process, called "blinding", is one of many ways in which Nike researchers and sport scientists set the table for testing new shoes with an athlete. Part of the goal is to keep the shoe undercover from the public for as long as possible. Scientists will hide stand-out attributes of the shoe, like its midsole profile or its upper, whenever it's tested in a public setting. But shrouding the prototype in mystery is intended for the athlete, too. The goal when designing these test studies is to minimise any confounding factors that could affect how an athlete performs. That includes getting past any hesitations about how odd, distinct or flat-out wild a prototype might look. Researchers work hard to isolate an athlete's physical response when they use a new piece of tech. They don't want any quality of a shoe to prematurely influence an athlete's feedback. Undistracted, the athlete can focus on the straightforward experience of wearing the shoe, getting a taste for how this mysterious new tool can give them a competitive edge.

Much like its final design, the Vomero Premium's earliest prototypes drew plenty of knee-jerk reactions at first sight. It nearly falls into a different category of maximalist footwear altogether. To a degree, that's where it belongs. The Vomero Premium is ineligible for World Athletics competition thanks to its 55mm stack height in the heel, a full bed of ZoomX foam and two exposed Zoom units borrowed from Nike track spikes in the forefoot and the heel.&nbsp;Mantz was in a deciding moment in his competitive season. He was battling a bone injury to his femur, but the 2024 US Olympic Marathon Trials were fast approaching, and would determine who travelled to Paris later that summer to compete for a medal. Training was painful at times. He couldn't get in the mileage he needed. In his transition back to road running, he needed a bold solution to help build back his stamina. What he got was a bold, new prototype to test out. But the leap from a prototype's presentation to its adoption is easier said than done."What I needed in my training shoe was something that could get my confidence back up", says Mantz. "When my team showed me this new Nike prototype, it was unlike anything I'd seen before. It was a lot. You see this, and you think it's going to be clunky to run in".

Testing innovative prototypes with new cushioning systems like that of the Vomero Premium is a thorough process. It includes hours of exchanges between athletes, designers and scientists about which qualities of the shoe need to be turned up and which should be toned down. Just as important in the process, though, is another tall task: to channel positive belief in a product that might look and feel different from what an athlete is used to wearing.Sometimes a prototype must fight against historical preconceptions if it contains technology that was never thought to "belong" in a particular sport. Take the Nike Maxfly sprint spike. Introduced in Tokyo in 2021, the spike was the first to bring Air Zoom to the 100 metres. Seeing the pronounced Air unit in the forefoot was unusual, particularly for an event that suggests a less-is-more approach for footwear. Weren't simpler, more minimal spikes better? Fast forward to Tokyo's conclusion, and athletes wore the Maxfly and medalled in both the men and women's 100 metres—and the 200 metres, the 400 metres, the 800 metres and the relay events.&nbsp;A clear premise, to fine-tune the plated airbag design for sprint biomechanical loads, was achieved both through adoption and through race performances.How do you convince athletes that, while what they're currently wearing may work,&nbsp;this&nbsp;prototype they're holding in their hands has the makings of something special?"Our main focus is trust", says Tobie Hatfield, Nike senior director, Athlete* Innovation. "If athletes don't know that you're looking out for them as individuals, they'll never trust the product you make for them. Everything we do has to be built on earning their trust".Encouraging an athlete to adopt a new shoe depends on stoking that trust—emotionally, psychologically and, in the case of a shoe, biomechanically.

Trace all shoes back to their first prototypes, and you'll find that most designs are intentionally made as visually subdued versions of the final silhouette. This allows for controlled research; the more basic a shoe looks, the less likely an athlete will form a biased opinion about it. Emily Farina, sr principal, Running Footwear Research in the NSRL, recalls the earliest testing of the Vaporfly 4% prototype in the mid 2010s. She says the shoe's initial field research went relatively unnoticed, thanks in large part to the anonymous-looking prototype. The early design would be the starting point for the groundbreaking Vaporfly 4% Elite worn by Eliud Kipchoge in Breaking 2. "If you saw the early prototype in 2015, it was hard to really know what you were looking at", says Farina, referring to its stack height and rocker shape, two outlying qualities which have become standard for that new era of cushioned running shoes. "Validation relied on what you felt and how you performed, not what you could see. Nike brought the prototype to Eliud's running camp in Kenya. A lot of the runners had trouble understanding how the design could make them faster. That is, until they took the shoes for a tempo run, looked down at their watches and realised they'd cut their pace by 30 seconds or more while exerting the same effort".

The stopwatch is one of the simplest signs of biomechanical efficiency. Are you able to run faster for the same effort? If the answer is yes, persuading an athlete to continue testing a new prototype becomes a lot simpler, no matter how extreme it looks. Often the athlete comes to this realisation of their improved performance in a kind of epiphany, like in the scene Farina describes, when a runner is able to accomplish something they weren't expecting and feel great while doing it. For Conner Mantz, his came during a long run in Utah, where he laced up the Vomero Premium prototype for a 22-miler with his training partners, still building up his base fitness due to the injury. He ran four of those miles at a snappy 4:30 pace. Mantz was shocked by how good he felt."That's when I started thinking to myself, maybe there's something special here", says Mantz, laughing how the prototype's stealthy design drove his teammates nuts. "They'd ask me to just tell them what this new shoe was. I'd tell them, 'Don't worry about it'".Other athletes need more information to trust a prototype. That's why Nike scientists test athlete responses to a range of stimuli, dubbed "signals". In footwear research, signals are different ways to evaluate a shoe's effect on performance.When world champion Faith Kipyegon visited the NSRL in September 2024, she underwent a number of tests that gave Nike scientists a quantitative launching pad for how to serve Faith in preparation for her four-minute mile attempt the following year. She underwent a VO2 Max test to explore her personal capacity. Another signal that's typical of NSRL visits from elite runners is a submax VO2 test, in which the athlete runs on a treadmill and swaps in different shoes while they are hooked up to an oxygen mask. The test results measure the body's use of oxygen to perform a task. Here, in comparing one shoe to another, proof of improved performance comes through improved physiological stats.

Along with creating Faith's one-of-one track spike, Nike provided her with a whole range of Nike tools to supplement her training for Breaking4, including the not-yet-released Vomero Premium for her recovery runs.

"The Vomero Premium was a key part of my training journey", says Faith. "It's so soft, cushioned and comfortable, and it helps me train harder with less impact to allow me to recover faster and stay focused on my goal".

Breaking the Mould for Breaking4

New doesn't always mean perfect. In the case of Faith's attempt, designers listened to every bit of her critical feedback to get her Victory Elite FK prototype just right, like expanding the width in the forefoot or adding spikes for better traction at toe-off. Mantz's review of the Vomero Premium prototypes were just as honest. The first prototype needed a more supportive upper, he told Nike designers and developers. After a few weeks, he had an updated version on his feet, though the second prototype felt less like a recovery shoe and more like a speedy, Alphafly-esque shoe. He relayed his feedback to the design teams. Another one of the updated versions had gone almost too extreme on the cushioning. It was too soft, said Mantz. The teams adjusted the midsole to find a happy medium between too soft and too race-y."Conner would always give us straight, honest feedback, which is vital to our process", says Rachel Nichols, lead developer, Nike Running. The feedback loop encompassed a variety of teammates across product design, working together to address Mantz's detailed review of each prototype.On and on the dialogue went, up to a fifth version of the prototype, and this one was … just right. He was back to logging 120+ mile training weeks, and what's more, he was feeling confident again, equipped with a training shoe that was working with his body through the high volume.

You know where the story goes from here. Mantz would go on to win the 2024 US Olympic Trials, where he secured his spot for Paris, finishing eighth. Now, Mantz is using every tool in his arsenal, including the Vomero Premium, to chase a new personal milestone at the 2025 Chicago Marathon: the American record of 2:05:38.&nbsp;"The Vomero Premium became this incredibly important shoe in my career. Training in the shoe helped me feel like myself again", says Mantz. "I'm really excited for people to be able to experience it. Going through the process of testing those early prototypes, helping make the final shoe as good as it can be, meant a lot to me".

Unflinching athlete feedback makes all products better. If a prototype has any chance to take off, incomplete versions need to be dismantled and built back up. Trust with athletes is formed not just through the successes, says Hatfield. It's formed through the failures, requiring the willingness to acknowledge when a product fell short. Shoes are never tested in a technological vacuum. Spreadsheets of positive data, oxygen masks and shrouded midsoles are all part of the magic. But trust in a new prototype begins and ends with the ordinary, relational act of listening to what athletes need."We never want a shoe to be disguised as a solution that was looking for a problem", says Hatfield. "That's backwards. A shoe should start by considering a problem that needs a solution. Listening to athletes gets to the heart of their needs, and that's where trust is formed".

Conner Mantz Feature Loop

How do you convince athletes that, while what they're currently wearing may work, the prototype they're holding in their hands has the makings of something special?

How We Partner With Athletes On New Prototypes

Words: <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="/company/people/department-of-nike-archives" target="_blank" class="ql-size-small">Department of Nike Archives</a> In 1971, Watergate was just a hotel, NASA was preparing Apollo 15 and a small Oregon company had just sold its first pair of shoes.The shoe—a football boot called the Nike—retailed for $16.95. Its defining feature was a tick-shaped stripe created by a Portland State University student for $35. Few noticed the shoe, but the mark would long outlast it.At the time, Nike wasn't yet the global sports brand it would become. Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman were still operating as Blue Ribbon Sports, a small distributor of Japanese running shoes. But contracts with their supplier were winding down, and Knight knew the company's future depended on more than someone else's product. To succeed, BRS needed a shoe of its own—and with it, an identity.That February, Knight contracted a factory in Mexico to produce a black football boot with a white sole. To distinguish it from Onitsuka Tiger models, he needed a brand mark. He turned to Carolyn Davidson, a design student he'd met while teaching accounting at Portland State.Two years earlier, Davidson had been overheard in a hallway telling a classmate she couldn't afford an oil painting course. Knight offered her $2 an hour to make charts and graphics for his side business. Over time, she created ads, brochures and catalogues. Now, he was asking her for something bigger: a stripe for the side of a shoe.

Davidson sketched half a dozen options. In an office in Tigard, Oregon, Knight gathered two employees to review them, including Jeff Johnson, Nike's first full-time hire. None of them made a strong impression. "It came down to a matter of which was the least awful", Johnson recalled.The group settled on Davidson's curving tick. She thought it suggested motion. Knight was unconvinced. "Well, I don't love it", he told her, "but it will grow on me".The stripe—not yet called the Swoosh—was rushed to Mexico so production could begin. Davidson sent Knight an invoice for $35.

Those first shoes carried the new mark into the world, but it looked different on nearly every model. On some, the line stretched wide. On others, it pinched tight. One runner joked that the curvier version resembled a "dead fish". Factories stitched it however they could, and designers adjusted the angle depending on the shoe's shape.

Yet the stripe was already making appearances in the right places. At the 1972 Boston Marathon, two of the top American finishers crossed the line wearing Nike shoes marked with Davidson's design—the first confirmed appearance of a Swoosh in a major race. The company highlighted the feat in marketing the following year.Apparel presented another challenge. On tops and bags, the asymmetry of the mark seemed awkward. Johnson experimented by fanning multiple Swooshes into a circle, creating what became known as the "Sunburst" or "Pinwheel" logo. Borrowed in spirit from the 1972 Olympic design, it gave Nike something bold to put on warm-ups and team gear.

Geoff Hollister, Nike's third employee—who&nbsp;would go on to pioneer the company's early marketing efforts—pressed&nbsp;the Sunburst onto vests and tracksuits. He also applied the Swoosh alone in unconventional ways. In 1974, Steve Prefontaine appeared at a meet in Tacoma wearing a tracksuit with a lone backwards Swoosh across the chest. That marked the first time the logo stood by itself on apparel.In those first years, the design was far from consistent. Some called it the stripe. Others thought it looked strange, even unbalanced. But on marathon finishing lines, in Olympic trials and on the chest of America's most famous runner, the mark was already doing its job: it was sticking.What began as a reluctant choice—a student's sketch rushed off to a factory—had become the emblem of Nike's earliest wins. The Swoosh wasn't yet the global icon it would become, but it was already proving it had staying power.

In the decades since that first football boot, the Swoosh has taken on countless forms. It was paired with bold Helvetica in the 1970s, broadcast to millions in Dennis Hopper's 1993 American football ads, stretched across Niketown Portland's architecture and splashed across caps at Wimbledon. It has been oversized, miniaturised, multiplied and, at times, overused. It has been guarded by Nike's "brand police", celebrated by athletes and parodied by critics.Through all those shifts, one through line has remained: the Swoosh endures. What began as a quick sketch by a college student has become one of the most recognised symbols in the world. More than a stripe, it's a global shorthand for speed, innovation and possibility.

Born of need and elevated by expertise and diligence, today the Department of Nike Archives (DNA) cares for hundreds of thousands of artefacts and a limitless vault of connected stories.&nbsp;The brand archive began organically in the 1970s and officially became DNA in 2006. The department's purpose is to both preserve and accelerate the ever-evolving and interconnected story of Nike. "Knowing who you are and the fights you've come through can do huge things for morale, inspiration and creativity. That's what DNA provides". - Phil Knight

Department of Nike Archives

Before Nike was a worldwide sports brand, it was an upstart company in need of an eye-catching visual identity. Here's the real story of the Swoosh.

History

The Nike Swoosh logo: from humble beginnings to global icon

On 29 May 1975, Steve Prefontaine crossed the finishing line for what would be his final race. In a 5000m victory where he was just a second and a half away from beating his own American record, Pre was wearing what would eventually be called his "signature" spike, in that it was created for Pre and applied his scrupulous product feedback: the Pre Montreal, a name inspired by the summer games happening in Canada the following year, in which Pre was scheduled to compete in the 5000m.&nbsp;Lore has it that, prior to the Pre Montreal, <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/stories/how-steve-prefontaine-set-the-pace-for-nike" target="_blank">Steve Prefontaine</a> was reluctant to run in Nike athletics shoes because he couldn't find a shoe that felt just right, including the prototypes created for him by Bill Bowerman. The Pre Montreal might have been the first Nike shoe that Pre truly loved, and its history is grounded in equal parts innovation and sombre memory for its legendary endorser.&nbsp;

How we made it

The Pre Montreal was the first competitive racing spike to have a toe box without seams or stitching. It went into production in 1973 but didn't become available to the masses until the following year.While visiting Japan with Phil Knight in 1971 to order a new batch of Nike samples, Jeff Johnson, one of Nike's first and foundational employees, tinkered with spike plates he picked up from a distributor in Germany.

It took until 1973 to develop, but Johnson was looking for a way to combine a six-spike toe plate with a seamless toe piece upper. To do it, Johnson used reverse leather in the forefront of the shoe and a standard shoe seam in the back of the shoe, joined by two pieces of nylon."The idea of getting rid of the seam was to reduce the risk of blisters, because some people have a long first toe and some people have a long second toe", Johnson told Nike DNA historians. "So, where the toe is going to strike the stitching and overlay is unpredictable".

How it took off

Prefontaine had yet to find a Nike spike that he felt comfortable in during competition. That included Bowerman's novel prototypes."They were pretty rough and they were inconsistent because of the lasting machinery", said Johnson. The shoes that Bowerman was cobbling during Pre's days were stuck in an older era, still solid shoes but not the freshest spikes on the track. As Johnson explained, "You wore them out of respect for Bowerman".&nbsp;But times were changing. Pre graduated from the University of Oregon in 1973 and quickly signed on with Blue Ribbon Sports as the company's self-proclaimed national director of public affairs. He even printed his own business cards. Pre's endorsement of Nike shoes, which often meant sending a pair of shoes along with a hand-written recommendation to a young runner, would become the cornerstone of Nike's marketing efforts for years to follow.Pre was never shy about giving input on his shoes to Johnson, who used Pre's feedback to help craft the Pre Montreal. Prefontaine expressed to Johnson that a seamless toe would provide comfort to a runner's foot."We had Pre as an endorsement but we had nothing specific to give him", said Johnson. "This was the most interesting shoe, so I said 'Why don't we give it to Pre?' What can we call a shoe that we can somehow name after Pre? Pre Montreal!"The spike's final design earned Prefontaine's seal of approval. Amateur Athletic Union regulations of that era prevented athletes from officially endorsing products at the risk of losing their amateur status altogether. Still, it was impossible to disassociate the runner from his colourful new spike. Nobody could stop Pre, and Pre was everywhere. He would race from 1973 until that final race in May of 1975 while wearing his Pre Montreal spikes.&nbsp;

What's next

The legacy of the Pre Montreal continues with the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-international-running-pack-official-images" target="_blank">Nike International Running Pack</a>. The collection's Vaporfly 4, the latest evolution of Nike's original super shoe, embodies the spirit of the Pre Montreal through the spike's memorable red and blue colourway, its visual treatment inspired by the spike upper's combination of nylon and suede.

The 1973 Pre Montreal racing spike was an innovation worthy of its rising-star endorser, Steve Prefontaine.

Icons

The history of Steve Prefontaine's "signature" track spike

When asked about the race that told her she belonged with the world's best half-milers, Keely Hodgkinson thinks back to her 2021 victory at the British Championships. She was 19 years old, a self-proclaimed underdog and facing some of her home nation's top distance runners, many whose careers she'd watched with admiration as an amateur athlete. Now 23, the Nike athlete has reached that same national-hero status. She currently holds the world's leading 800-metre time of 1:54.74, in spite of a year of injuries, and is a leading candidate for a gold medal in Tokyo.&nbsp;&nbsp;Keely keeps good company back home. You'd be hard-pressed to find a more competitive nation in the women's 800-metre than the UK. In 2024, of the top five 800-metre women's times, UK runners held three of them—all from the same race at London's Olympic Stadium in July, when Keely set the British record. That Mancunian pride is a source of inspiration that Keely holds close, down to her choice of training club, M11. Based in Manchester, it's the newest locale under the Nike Swoosh TC umbrella, whose members include the likes of Georgia Hunter Bell, Sarah Healy and Erin Wallace. As Keely shares below, there's power in rediscovering your strength from the places that shaped you.&nbsp; Growing up in a small town can give you important opportunities if you have the talent and the work ethic. I grew up in a very small community outside of Manchester. For me, it was a true place to grow up. I had such great support at my school. People saw something in me and they encouraged me to run cross-country, where I first found a love of the sport. I don't know if anyone thought I would eventually take the world stage, but when you're a young kid and you're seen by members of a small community, you're given the opportunities to find a passion you might not otherwise find yourself.When I think of who I'm representing as a runner, I first think of my hometown. I'm quite proud to be from Manchester. We're one of the greatest cities in the world. And when it comes to sport, we really are incredible. We have two of the biggest football clubs in the world in one city. We have all kinds of high-performing athletes who are from Manchester. I love what the city has taught me. One of our mottos from M11 is that we're as busy as bees, which speaks to our city's work ethic.&nbsp;

Literal first-place wins are great, but you have to keep track of the small, behind-the-scenes wins that nobody else sees. When I think back to last year, I had a few different goals: win the World Indoor Championships, win the European Championships and staying undefeated. None of them happened because I kept getting hurt from my hamstring injury. All of a sudden, I had to shift to smaller goals. Let's put the spikes on. Let's start running. Let's run at 1,500m pace. Now 800m pace. Those were some crazy-small wins that meant a lot to me. It wasn't where I wanted to be, but sometimes you have to take a step back and take the small wins to get to the big ones.&nbsp;Your coaches can be a voice of reason when you encounter setbacks. I had many moments of frustration this year from the injuries. Coach Trevor [Painter] and Coach Jenny [Meadows] are amazing for a lot of reasons, one of them being how supportive they were of me. We have the kind of trusting relationship where we can have honest conversations. It was a struggle this year to figure out what was going on with the injuries, especially coming after a gold-medal year in Paris, but they 100 percent believed in me. Neither of them panic. I'm like, in some respects, surely we should be panicking now? But they have full belief in my capabilities, my talent and my drive. They know that if I put in the work, there's nothing to worry about.&nbsp;Our teammate dynamic within M11 is so solid. We all get on really well, we support each other, we have loads of ambition and we compete to get the best out of each other. Recovering from injury, it's been great having teammates like Georgia as a benchmark—she's been killing it on the track. We all work off each other's strengths and weaknesses across different practice sessions. We've had some of the boys join our team this year and I think they're drafting off us girls who've had a lot of experience and who've performed on the world stage. I couldn't ask for a better group of people to take the track with, day in and day out.&nbsp;

Some races have the makings of special times. That 2024 race in London where I set the national record was one of them. Olympic Stadium is this dream venue to compete in. Every competitor, whether you're British or not, loves that crowd, because they know they'll draw from the energy and the atmosphere as they burn down the home stretch. I knew I was in amazing shape. This was the opportunity to really go for it in front of a home crowd. We did the British 1–2–3. Georgia ran an amazing race and Erin helped us get there as our pacer. It's a race I look back on with a lot of pride, both personally and nationally.&nbsp;There were times I didn't even think I would be here to compete for a medal at Worlds. It's been a real struggle. Even if I got back onto the track, I didn't think I'd have enough time to prepare. That's why I'm so thankful for the journey. It would be really meaningful to get a win in the same Tokyo stadium where my career took off four years ago. To still be fighting for those medals four years later is crazy to think about. It goes to show what a great team we have back home.

Last year's 800-metre gold medallist has found her championship form again after a year of injuries. Integral to her comeback are the people and places she holds close.

For the win

To get back to Tokyo, Keely Hodgkinson found her way back home

Words: <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="/company/people/department-of-nike-archives" target="_blank" class="ql-size-small">Department of Nike Archives</a>Not every breakthrough in sports science begins in a lab.For Nike's iconic Waffle sole—one of running's most game-changing innovations—it began in the kitchen.It was 1971 and <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/stories/bill-bowerman-nike-s-original-innovator" target="_blank">Bill Bowerman</a> was wrestling with a problem he'd been turning over in his mind ever since a hard, slick new urethane track had been installed at the University of Oregon two years prior, which was injuring runners. Bowerman had to face a reality: he had chosen a track surface that wasn't holding up, and he needed to find a fix. How could his runners get better grip? Spikes dug in too deep; flats didn't bite enough.One morning, while glancing at his wife, Barbara's, waffle iron—a Model 251 by Bersted Manufacturing Company, which the Bowermans had received as a wedding gift in 1936—he was struck by the grid pattern. The raised squares seemed like the exact geometry that could deliver the lightweight traction he'd been chasing.He poured liquid urethane straight into the family waffle iron, only it instantly glued shut permanently, ruining their 35-year-old wedding present. Undeterred, he drove into town, bought several more secondhand waffle irons, and kept experimenting. Those first imprints came out inverted with concave bumps, but they sparked the idea that would lead him to refine moulds and materials until a workable prototype finally emerged.

What resulted was the first version of the Nike Moon Shoe—a design that would shape the future of running for decades."The Waffle sole changed everything", says Nike Running Historian Rick Lower. "Not only did it transform how runners thought about traction and cushioning but it showed people what Nike was about: solving problems in new ways".

A catalyst for the future

In 1971, Nike, then still known as Blue Ribbon Sports, an American importer of Japanese running shoes, hadn't yet become the global force in sports innovation that it is today. The fledgling company was still finding its footing, and Bowerman—co-founder, coach and relentless tinkerer—was at the centre of that push. To him, every surface was a problem waiting for a solution.&nbsp;That included the new Astroturf laid down at Autzen Stadium, where the Oregon Ducks football team struggled for traction. In wet conditions, players often ditched their boots for basketball shoes with a herringbone outsole that gripped better. Bowerman and teammate Jeff Johnson began exploring traction ideas for football as well as athletics, a line of thinking that would lead to the Astrograbber—a shoe prototyped in 1972 and <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-bode-rec-astrograbber-official-images" target="_blank">reissued decades later</a>."There had been no real innovation in outsoles for decades", says Nike Running Historian Rick Lower. "Running shoes were basically just a sheet of rubber to protect your feet from the road, and traction and cushioning were secondary. Bowerman wasn't willing to accept that".Inspired by the moment in his kitchen, he began pulling in a network of local resources to help refine the moulds and materials—tire shops, machinists, cobblers. Early prototypes disintegrated after only minutes of running. Others left athletes with cut ankles from exposed wire that was embedded in the rubber mixture for traction. Yet each failed attempt nudged the idea closer to the finishing line.

By November 1971, the Waffle sole had its first taste of competition when members of Oregon's cross-country team wore early versions to win the NCAA title. Through the winter and spring of 1972, more college&nbsp;and local South Eugene high-school&nbsp;athletes quietly tested pairs. By the following summer, Bowerman and Geoff Hollister were hand-cobbling a small batch of prototypes for a bigger stage: the US Olympic Trials in Eugene.They weren't perfect, especially not for the marathon level. "It was basically just an upper stitched to a thin sheet of waffle", Lower says. "So minimal it was like running barefoot". Still, a handful of brave runners laced them up. Some thought the Waffle sole footprints looked like astronauts' footprints on the moon, becoming part of the lore that gave the prototypes their now-iconic nickname: the Moon Shoe.For the fast-growing company, it was a pivotal moment. Even if the shoe wasn't ready for mass release, it was proof the idea worked and evidence that this small Oregon company could push running footwear in an entirely new direction.

The bridge to a running movement

The Moon Shoe itself never went to market, though a few pairs are believed to have been sold out of Nike's Eugene retail store, making it possible to have snagged one if you were in the right place at the right time. But the shoe's DNA spread quickly. By 1973, Nike released the Oregon Waffle. Two years later came the Waffle Trainer, Nike's first blockbuster success.Designed by Bill Bowerman and Geoff Hollister, as well as famed Bowerman collaborators orthopaedic surgeon Stan James and podiatrist Dennis Vixie, the Waffle Trainer became Nike's most popular running model. It was created at the request of runner Jon Anderson, who wanted a more substantial training shoe, but went well beyond satisfying Anderson's needs—it became the best-selling training shoe in the country. By 1975, orders had topped 100,000 units, and its blue upper with a yellow Swoosh became one of the defining looks of Nike's early years. To this day, it remains emblematic of Nike in the 1970s.

The milestone sneaker didn't just give everyday runners better grip. With a flared sole and a new cushioning sensation unlike anything they'd felt before, it changed expectations of what a running shoe could be."That shoe was the bridge", Lower explains. "It took the Moon Shoe's experiment and turned it into a global product. From there Nike's reputation as an innovator was cemented".But it wasn't the end for the Moon Shoe. After making its revival on Nike collaborator and French designer Jacquemus's runway last January, the iconic silhouette was reimagined for a new generation. Sleek and fashion-forward, the new sneaker, coming soon, bridges performance heritage and style with speed, capturing the same restless drive that defined its earliest incarnation. What was once vaulted as Nike's racing DNA is now primed for the future.

Long live experimentation and innovation

The waffle iron tale might have stayed legend if not for a discovery decades later. When Bowerman's son Tom renovated the family property in Coburg, Oregon, he unearthed a long-forgotten rubbish pit near the carport. Inside were discarded prototypes, moulds and the rusted shell of the waffle iron Barbara Bowerman had tossed after Bill glued it shut.&nbsp;Today, that iron rests in the Department of Nike Archives at Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, Ore., acting as a reminder of the kitchen tinkering that became the blueprint for Nike's approach and long-term success: experiment boldly, keep refining and never stop pushing forward.

Created from the experimentation and ingenuity of Nike's co-founder Bill Bowerman, the Nike Moon Shoe's unique design would shape the future of running for decades.

From waffle iron to world stage: the true story of the Nike Moon Shoe

From his first year travelling to China to his 15th, LeBron James and Nike have used basketball as a cross-cultural exchange to unite players from across the world. During his final stop on the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/lebron-james-forever-king-tour" target="_blank">Forever King Tour</a>, LeBron watched multiple teams face off in Chengdu, their squads separated by thousands of miles: the China Rise men's and women's teams, and the EYBL Cal Stars (women's) and Veritas Academy (men's) based in Los Angeles. Their love for the game might have been born across different geographic lines, but one constant in their personal stories has been <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/stories/lebron-james-china-tour-archives" target="_blank">LeBron himself</a>, who cheered on the teams as they played.

—Photo contribution from <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.instagram.com/zhengyibb/" target="_blank">ZhengYi</a>

Amateur teams from China's Rise Academy and the LA-based Cal Stars and Veritas Academy went head to head during LeBron's China tour. There in attendance to cheer them on: the King himself.

Rising together

Melissa Jefferson-Wooden is representing the US women's sprints in Tokyo, where she's running both the 100 metres and the 200 metres. But saying she earned the right to race for her country undersells just how dominant of a season, from start to finish, the South Carolina native has had. She's undefeated in the 100 metres this year. During her preliminary heat at the US Championships, she laid down a 10.65, making her the sixth fastest woman in American history. She'll go for the legendary sprint double in Tokyo, and if she can strike lightning twice, she'll be the first woman to do it in 22 years. Here, MJW talks about her unbeaten season, her surge in confidence since last summer in Paris and her preparation ahead of Tokyo as she looks to make history.Editor's note: on 14 September, MJW concluded her perfect season by winning gold in Tokyo, running a 10.61 in the 100m, good for a championship record and fourth-place all time in the event. Having a winning mindset starts by taking responsibility for what you can control, not what you can't. Growing up, I didn't necessarily have the most resources. But if I was going to be successful, I couldn't let adversity get in the way of what I really wanted to achieve on the track. I learned to not complain about the things I don't have, and instead focus on the things I can control and allow those things to fuel me.The biggest change I noticed in myself this season was when I focused on competing against myself versus other people. I'm not focusing on what other racers can do or the ways I don't feel equipped. I'm focusing on the things that make me my best self, like my technique and my cues. I'm not losing sight of how I can compete against my own best. That takes its own kind of discipline.When I take the starting line, I'm representing my village. That's my family, but it's also my team who's been a part of my journey—my coaches, my training partners. I worked so hard to get to where I am, but the reality is that those people have sacrificed so much on my behalf too. I'm racing for them, not just for me.&nbsp;

The feeling of winning is a full-circle moment. When I crossed the finish line for the 200 metres at Trials, I remember how satisfying it was to look at the time and feel validated for all of the work I put in, all of the struggles you fought through. Even though you're exhausted, when you cross the finish line, you feel this peace and happiness that washes over you. Crossing the finish line in first place is obviously what I think of when I think of winning, but also the full-circle serenity of knowing that your hard work paid off.Racing those doubles can tell you a lot about your fitness level. I had some great opportunities to run the double this year in Kingston, Miami and Philadelphia. Now, in those races, we have the benefit of the 100 metres and the 200 metres being on different days, so you can take them on one by one. Tactically, you can focus on one thing at a time. But in a setting like the Trials, you might go out and need to run two 200s in a day. It took me a second to get readjusted to a more traditional double, but I was quick to remind myself, Melissa, stay out of your own head. You're in shape, you're prepared for this. Telling your mind that your body is ready for the challenge: that's what life is about. Go out and dare to do something that you haven't done before.&nbsp;

I've thankfully had a great season, but I'm not taking anything for granted. After Brussels, I said in an interview that I still feel like I'm the one doing the hunting. It's the truth. I have the fastest 100-metre time in the world this year, and I'm top five in the 200 metres, but I don't have any individual titles or medals yet. I'm not getting caught up in everyone else saying that I'm the one to beat. I'm not. I'm still chasing everyone else in that field before I can say I'm at the top.Every performance, from my medal in Paris to whatever happens in Tokyo, has to start with my step-by-step race execution. It's easy to get caught up in which medals or titles mean more. But if I don't execute my race in the way that I'm supposed to, then I can't even start talking about achievements. Let's get to the starting line, let's run my race, let's execute and let's see what happens.&nbsp;

On 14 September, MJW concluded her perfect season by winning gold in Tokyo, running a 10.61 in the 100m, good for a championship record and fourth-place all time in the event.

For Melissa Jefferson-Wooden, there's no place like first place

Rai Benjamin has spent a lifetime with both feet planted in different worlds. On the track, he's one of the fastest 400-metre hurdlers ever, but his 4x400 relay teams have also put together some of the most memorable performances in American history. (A recent example: last year's relay in Paris, where Rai ran an inspired 43.13 anchor leg, holding off a furious comeback against Botswana.) He proudly wears USA on his chest, but he's also the proud son of Antiguan immigrants who made a life for themselves in the Bronx. Rai will compete in the 400-metre hurdles in Tokyo for his first world title. But his identities as a competitor are intricately laced across the many bonds he carries as an athlete—equal parts individual and teammate, American star and son of Caribbean parents. Below, Rai speaks to his identities as an athlete, his epiphany during his undefeated 2024 season and why he values the team above all. Early on, I was able to experience what makes track special as both an individual and a collective sport. When I was first old enough to compete on the international stage, I was able to compete for Antigua in the Ukraine for the World Youth Championships. It was a great experience overall, but I realise now that I was missing a sense of camaraderie with my teammates. I was watching Team USA, where everyone was having fun together and doing their own thing. I realised I was missing that team aspect. Here I was, a 15-year-old, by myself in a hotel room in a foreign country. When it's your first time at a big meet, having teammates who are going through the same thing as you, all while you're competing individually, is so important.It was that sense of camaraderie that led me to filing to compete for Team USA. All of my friends were competing for the USA, and I wanted to be a part of that. The transfer was a long process. I went through two entire collegiate seasons before it was approved. I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news. I was sitting in Spanish class, 8am. Horrible. Everyone was dozing off. All of a sudden, I get an email that pops up: my allegiance transfer was approved. Representing both Antigua and the United States are integral parts of my story. Competing for my family's country of origin helped put me on a trajectory that changed my outlook on life, both athletically and personally.&nbsp;Going from New York to Los Angeles for college was like night and day. Getting onto the road after flying into LAX, I'm seeing six-lane highways for the first time. The sun's always shining, there are no clouds in the sky, there's an In-N-Out everywhere you look. It seemed like a life you only saw on TV. Then you get onto the track: These kids are running 45s in the 400, and 3:15s in the relay. I'm like, Whoa, this is an entirely different beast on the track scene as well. I'm a proud East Coaster, but I was ready to experience a culture shift like that once I got to UCLA and then USC, because I knew I'd grow as a competitor.&nbsp;Athletes are lucky to have one standout season that defines their career. It's even rarer to have two. The 2024 season for me was special. I went undefeated in the hurdles, I ran a world-leading time twice and the 4x400 relay in Paris was one of the craziest races I've ever been a part of. But that 2018 season at USC was magical, man. My outdoor times were fast, and that 4x400 relay team [Michael Norman, Ricky Morgan and Zach Shinnick] was special from top to bottom. But the middle of those seasons, those six years, was what changed me as an athlete, and those were the most trying years of my career, being injured so much. Something needed to change. I went to coach Joanna Hayes before my 2024 season and I told her, "Listen, I just want to have fun again this year. I don't want to think too much about anything. I just want to race, stay healthy and have fun on the track again". Being the amazing coach that she is, she sat down with my trainer and created a plan for the season. It was like a flip was switched, as far as feeling like myself again.

I started enjoying myself on the track again once I surrendered myself to the things I couldn't control. There's only so much you can do to prepare. Get the training in, be present, accept when you've done enough. I like to say that 2024 was my season of surrender.&nbsp;Knowing when to say no is one of the most important decisions you make as an athlete. I've had two clear moments in my life. One of them was when I chose not to run in the 2024 Pre Classic. I had this recurring injury in my quad that was showing up. I distinctly remember telling my coaches and my agent that if I go to Pre, I'm going to ruin the rest of my season. I had my sights on Paris later that summer. I knew that I was risking a medal in Paris if I insisted on battling through the pain and competing in Eugene. To my team's credit, everyone supported me. I let my leg heal. The telltale sign it was the right decision was when I raced in Monaco in July. That win gave me all the confidence in the world going into Paris.&nbsp;Unless you've run in a relay, you don't know how special it is to be running for your teammates. That 4x400 relay medal in Paris means more to me than my individual gold. The four of us were running for each other. We were running for the entire nation. As soon as I got that baton as the anchor, I had never heard a stadium that loud in my entire life. I get to the homestretch and I'm spent, I have nothing left in the tank. I was like, "Please, God, get me to the line!"&nbsp;I remember crossing the line and being ecstatic. The boys were so happy, people were going nuts. It was one of the hardest things I've had to do in my entire life.Now, I'm better on the mental side of competition than ever. My win at US Nationals was a great example of how I've matured as a runner. Caleb Dean started to my outside, and he took off like he was shot out of a cannon. But I've raced these guys so many times. I know exactly how they're going to approach it. I knew Caleb was going to hit the first six hurdles hard. I usually know by hurdle seven or so if a guy can sustain a pace like that, and I knew I could chase him down. That's the maturity in me. I'm confident in my experiences and my race planning, so I'm not thrown off by what a competitor does. I don't doubt my tactics in the way I might have when I was a younger runner.&nbsp;

The American hurdler will go for his first gold medal at the World Championships in Tokyo. His many identities—as an individual and teammate, as the son of Caribbean immigrants and as a proud American—are what ground his success.