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

From the moment Faith Kipyegon broke the women's mile world record in Monaco in 2023, there was a palpable energy in the air, a sense that something bigger was beginning.&nbsp;As Nike Footwear Innovation Lead Carrie Dimoff puts it, "I'll never forget the feeling in the stadium. It was electric. Everyone was amazed but already starting to wonder: could this be the beginning of the sub-4-minute mile for women?" You could call that the start of Breaking4. But the essence of Faith Kipyegon and Nike's project is more timeless: showing all athletes* that barriers are meant to be pushed and dreams meant to be big. Says Faith, "I get motivated by thinking of what I can achieve, the boundaries I can break and how I can empower the next generation. You can't limit yourself. You have to go for that dream. I want to show women especially that anything is possible".Here, a visual chronicle of Faith and Nike's Breaking4 journey—and clear evidence of the power of daring to try. *If you have a body, you are an athlete.

A visual reflection on the shared goal—inspiring all athletes to dream big and break barriers—between the world's fastest woman miler and Nike.

The Breaking4 journey: Faith Kipyegon and Nike's unforgettable project

Words: <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="/company/people/davis-jones-senior-editor" target="_blank" class="ql-size-small">Davis Jones</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> At its core, Breaking4—<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/breaking4-faith-kipyegon-vs-the-four-minute-mile" target="_blank">Faith Kipyegon's project with Nike</a> to run a sub-4-minute mile—has always been about heart and belief. That's what's powering Kipyegon, alongside <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/stories/faith-kipyegon-breaking4-speed-kit-behind-the-design" target="_blank">cutting-edge Nike performance products</a>. But don't think for a second—certainly not the 7.65 seconds Kipyegon needs to shave off her world-record mile time—that&nbsp;Nike didn't consider hundreds of other factors to get Kipyegon across the line in a time starting with a "3".To complement and amplify Kipyegon's bespoke products—including a one-of-one Nike Fly Suit, <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/stories/nike-new-performance-material-flyweb" target="_blank">a revolutionary FlyWeb Bra</a> and a first of its kind Victory 2 Elite FK Spike—<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/stories/meet-the-dream-team-behind-faith-kipyegon-s-breaking4-attempt" target="_blank">the Breaking4 team</a> fine-tuned the attempt's aerodynamics and efficiency. Preparation and location. Weather and, well, vibes. Each of these points contain smaller details that the Nike Innovation team scrutinised from every angle, all in an effort to nail a perfectly orchestrated approach with Kipyegon. Dive into 10 of the ways Nike offered its support.

<h3>1. Let Faith be Faith </h3>Faith Kipyegon isn't toeing the line for Breaking4 as merely an elite runner. She's built a case as one of the greatest middle-distance runners of all time. She's the current world-record holder across three distances. Her three gold medals in the 1,500 metres span almost a decade and counting. There are intangibles too. She has her training preferences perfectly tuned. She understands her own athleticism like a driver knows their racing car. Nike's role in Breaking4 wasn't to reset Kipyegon, but to add to the capabilities of an already historic runner.

<h3>2. Instil confidence</h3>In the beginning of Breaking4 strategising, the Innovation team debated the trajectory of Kipyegon's 1-mile racecourse. What if the path was a straight, like in a road race? Remove all the curves, and ensure a pacing formation could be linear instead of skewed for left turns? ﻿When the team shared this with Kipyegon, she was vocal: She'd feel more confident and comfortable running on a track, where she'd built her entire professional career on reading the eight lanes, tuning her focus to the inside rail."Whether it was a feature of the racecourse, her pacer formation or a detail in her apparel, building her confidence meant everything to us", says Amy Jones Vaterlaus, VP, Innovation, NSRL. "We listened to her intently. We watched for cues she'd give off, maybe without even realising it. Ensuring she can move freely, without distraction, is just one more way we can help build her confidence".

<h3>3. Choose the right time of year</h3>Kipyegon's professional schedule weighed heavily in choosing the month for the attempt. If she's to peak in mid September during the World Championships in Tokyo, she has to give her body the ideal window of time for training periodisation, or the scaling of her preparation to leave her feeling ready to go. The optimal timing: late June.

<h3>4. Game the weather</h3>﻿Weather conditions on race day can be the dealbreaker for achieving fast times. Heat, wind and rain can all put an additional load on an athlete. Too much heat is a thermal burden that leads to overexertion. Too much wind—and around a track, there will always be a headwind at a certain point—creates drag forces that slow runners down. Weather doesn't come on demand, of course, and the Nike team knew the ideal geographic location of the attempt would need to cross off as many criteria as possible: zero rain, less than 12km/hr wind, moderate temperatures.

<h3>5. Minimise the jet lag</h3>﻿Anyone who flies internationally can attest to the physical and mental toil from zooming through time zones, leaving you sluggish and fatigued. Your body has a circadian rhythm, an internal clock, that prompts you to wake up and go to sleep. Somewhere in the middle of that time period is the bioenergetic sweet spot, when you feel most energised, or, in Kipyegon's case, most physically capable. That made finding the right area of the world for the attempt paramount for Breaking4. Minimising a shift in time zones would help keep Kipyegon's body clock from feeling out of whack."We knew she couldn't arrive feeling drained", says Jones Vaterlaus. "Paris having a time zone of one-hour difference from Kenya was a much easier decision than, say, somewhere in the United States, where Faith's jet lag would be significant".

<h3>6. Fine-tune the details</h3>A track isn't an inert surface. It possesses levels of responsiveness that can leave a runner's legs feeling fresh, or it can be firm and dampening, diffusing the precious energy that a runner puts into the ground. Texture matters too. Its grittiness can be well-suited, or not at all, for traction as a runner digs into the turns. For Breaking4, the Nike Innovation team ordered swatches of 10 track surfaces from around the world, sampling from different stadiums, to find the composition ideal for Kipyegon's performance, which included considerations like Kipyegon's bodyweight and stride rate."Our footwear solution for Faith was built on studying the interaction between Faith's foot and the ground", says Carrie Dimoff, senior manager for innovation footwear. "Our formula had to consider the track surface she'll be running on, and the properties the surface does or doesn't carry. While we were still landing on the location, we were able to test our spike prototypes on the exact track surface so we could evaluate energy return and traction effectiveness".

<h3>7. Find the ideal stadium</h3>The team knew Kipyegon wanted to compete on a track to stay true to the historical spirit of her sport. That left Nike's Innovation team with the crucial decision of which track. A track where a runner has pre-existing history can give them the comfort they need to lay down a fast time. One of these options was in Monaco, where Kipyegon broke the mile world record in 2023. The team also considered Eugene, Ore. In 2023, Kipyegon stepped onto Hayward Field and cruised to a Diamond League title in the 1,500 metres while setting a Prefontaine Classic meet record. In the end, the team decided on Stade Charléty in Paris, where Kipyegon ran her world-record times in the 1,500 and 5,000 metres. "I absolutely think there's special energy at this track", says Kipyegon. I have beautiful memories in Paris, breaking the 5,000 world record, breaking the 1,500 world record there. And now we are going for this special one, and I think the track will bring good results".

<h3>8. Perfect a pacer strategy</h3>﻿Nike's previous moonshot attempt, Breaking2, was a grand lesson in pacing strategy and aerodynamics. Nailing the drafting formation for Breaking4 would be one of the key elements to give Kipyegon the best chance to go sub-4. To help reduce the drag on Kipyegon, the Nike team considered countless pacer configurations, experimenting with the number of runners, the balance between men and women, and the geometry of the formation itself. They also thought about whether to introduce new pacers during the attempt. The upshot? Disruptions can make the smoothness of drafting go haywire; the choice to switch in runners midway through a lap can create micro-undulations in the air frequency, disturbing Kipyegon's speed."Creating a low-air-pressure pocket for Faith requires total synchrony among all the pacers in the formation", says Kirby. "Experimenting with different formations is a lot like rearranging the pieces on a chess board. The timing needs to be right, the group positioning needs to be right, and the relationship between any single pacer to Faith needs to be right".

<h3>9. Pump up the colour</h3>Colour choice has the psychological power to motivate an athlete to reach her highest potential. Though the Nike Innovation team used little colour in the Nike Fly Suit—one reason was that doing so would affect the aerodynamic properties of the material—the suit's Nike Aeronodes are in a colour-shifting purple, a nod to Kipyegon's favourite colour. The stadium itself will be awash in purple, covering the stands, the jumbotron and the signage around the track. At literally every turn, Kipyegon will see the colour that motivates her. Beyond the race-day environment, Kipyegon's Nike Running Collection is also rooted in purple. The collection, which includes footwear and apparel, is paired with accents of red and green, representing her Kenyan heritage. And on Kipyegon's Victory Elite FK Spike, gold accents denote her gold medal victories.

<h3>10. Give her all the Nike advantages</h3>The Innovation team gave Kipyegon the full gamut of Nike tools during her training leading up to the attempt. Some are at the modern edge of athlete-recovery methodology, such as <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/hyperboot-by-nike-hyperice-official-images" target="_blank">Nike's Hyperice boots</a>, a heat and air-compression massage tool. Others, such as Nike's <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-vomero-plus-vomero-premium-official-images" target="_blank">new Vomero Premium shoe</a>, were ideal for recovery runs or long mileage. Then there were the innovations that were expedited so Kipyegon could benefit from their advantages before and during the race. Nike FlyWeb, <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/stories/nike-new-performance-material-flyweb" target="_blank">a new 3D-printed material used for </a>Kipyegon's <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/stories/nike-new-performance-material-flyweb" target="_blank">sports bra</a>, was moved forward in its production cycle for Kipyegon to train in it. "This attempt is the first time Nike FlyWeb will be tested on the world stage, and in a one-of-one bra", says Janett Nichol, VP of Apparel Innovation. "Faith gave us a rare opportunity: she would not only wear it, she'd help us evolve it".

When she takes to the starting line, in every way, Kipyegon will represent Nike's latest and greatest.

Speed suit, sports bra, spikes, focus. Here, other essential factors Nike considered to give Faith Kipyegon the best support for Breaking4.

10 details Nike obsessed over to support Faith Kipyegon and Breaking4

When Marquis Mills Converse founded his eponymous company in 1908 in Boston, Mass., his mission was to create an operation that functioned independent of the industry's monopolies, rooted in a community of the best rubber shoemakers. His first products were galoshes and waterproof winter boots, which meant demand for his wares dipped in warmer seasons. To keep his highly skilled craftspeople occupied year-round, Converse needed a summer offering. A canvas tennis shoe with a rubber sole debuted in 1910, but the company's true breakthrough didn't come until it saw an opportunity to apply its signature innovations to a sneaker expressly designed for a then-newfangled local sport: basketball.Invented in 1891 in nearby Springfield, Mass., basketball was growing in popularity and being adopted by regional colleges when Converse introduced its "Non-Skid" shoe in 1917, defining the design as the "All-American basket-ball shoe". It was crafted on the company's original dress shoe last with two-piece quarter for superior ankle fit and paired with a non-skid sole that employed Converse's patented diamond-tread pattern.&nbsp;

The sneaker was first marketed to the area's coaches, who provided Converse with constructive feedback, including noting that they'd prefer a darker canvas upper because the light tan hue revealed too many scuffs and dings. In response, the company created a dark brown version of the Non-Skid, featuring black trim up the eye row. The iteration was officially branded the "All Star" in 1919, kicking off a new round of basketball-specific innovations that came to characterise the silhouette as the leading performance basketball shoe of the next half-century.As for the shoe's namesake, Chuck Taylor (aka Charles Hollis Taylor), he arrived a few years later.

True to its name, the Chuck Taylor All Star was worn by basically every top basketball player pre-1965. These athletes included players competing on the world's biggest stage in 1936, when Converse equipped the US men's basketball team with white Chucks featuring red and blue stripes on their foxing tape. The custom version was such a hit that competing teams adopted it, and the colourway was permanently added to the product line. In 1939, America's first national college basketball championship featured players in Chucks. In 1962, basketball's professional single-game scoring record&nbsp;of 100&nbsp;points was made in Chucks. In 1971, Chucks debuted in team colours, allowing teams to match their kit to their shoes for the first time. Chucks was basketball, and basketball was Chucks.

A 1922–23 catalogue detailing the performance merits and evolution of the Converse All Star.

Chuck Taylor, a Converse salesman and player-coach for the Converse All Star basketball team in the early 1920s.

Chuck Taylor, the man, coaching a basketball clinic in the 1950s in Chucks.

Converse Non-Skid All Stars, circa 1923, a later version of the original design, which debuted in 1917.

A Converse athletic footwear catalogue from 1957, the year the low-top Chuck was released.

As it turns out, the performance innovations that made the Chuck a great basketball design also made it a great skateboarding shoe.

Skateboarding debuted in mid-century California as "sidewalk surfing", a pastime for when the waves were flat. The low-top Chuck, which came out in 1957, was already a favourite of these "beach boys" and perfectly adapted to the new street sport, thanks to its underfoot cushioning, grippy rubber and form-fitting canvas upper.

Over 50 years later, the Chuck retains its foundational status in skate and with its top athletes—even as the sport has moved from the street to the world's premier competitions and into its leading museums. In 2023, the Design Museum in London hosted "Skateboard",&nbsp;the exhibition arm of a multimedia project that also included <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.phaidon.com/store/design/skateboard-9781838667498/" target="null">a book</a> created in collaboration with curator Jonathan Olivares, Converse and Phaidon, chronicling the countercultural design history of skateboarding.

A 1975 "sidewalk surfer" sporting laid-back, high-performance Chucks.

Ad for the 1988 Rad Collection, which comprised one-of-a-kind high-top Chucks and T-shirts.

The 2023 "Skateboard" exhibition at the Design Museum in London cemented the Chuck's status in skate and design.

Converse CONS team rider Bryce Wettstein wears Chucks when riding competitively and casually.

"Skateboard" explores the design, materials, culture and history of skateboarding.

The Chuck's simple, no-frills style also reflects skate's democratic, live-on-your-own-terms DNA—which has taken it everywhere.

Tyler, the Creator says it well: "I'm from LA, and I grew up with skateboarders. [The Chuck Taylor] is a very staple shoe in that lifestyle". The Chuck bridged skate and music in the '90s and early noughties, but the shoe's musical roots stretch back to artists topping Billboard charts in the '50s and '60s. These global stars wore the silhouette everywhere: on stages from California to England, crossing Penny Lane, traversing the beaches of Hawthorne and strolling the streets of Haight-Ashbury.

Over the decades, the Chuck has collected a roster of musical artists that rivals a legacy record label's list and spans all genres, from punk, alternative and grunge to hip-hop, indie rock and pop. It has also cemented its place in recording studios, on album covers and at global music festivals, even infiltrating classical music halls. In 2018, when the conductor Jonathon Heyward forgot his formal shoes for an orchestra performance, he wore his red Chucks onstage, nearly upstaging the concert. "Being able to find a sense of relatability within classical music is something that I am really passionate about, and Chuck Taylors are incredible barrier breakers", explains Heyward, who is music & artistic director of the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center, and music director at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. "By simply wearing a pair of Chuck Taylors to my concert, I become more relatable—and people's openness becomes greater when there is that sense of relatability. The walls go down and I can take them on a journey, which is what classical music is and what a live classical music performance is about".

As a cultural bellwether of mid-century America, the Chuck couldn't ignore colour. First introduced for basketball-centric reasons, the rainbow of hues also made a statement by breaking down colour barriers on court and off, celebrating diversity and championing self-expression in all forums.

From primary tones came endless prints and motifs, with the '80s debuting camouflage and animal and glitter treatments along with checkerboard, strike and glow-in-the-dark patterns. New materials, heights and shapes followed, evolving the Chuck from a signifier of specific subcultures to a customisable badge for those independent enough not to follow—and for an ever-evolving roster of collaborators.

It all began in 1934 with Disney, Converse's first brand partnership, which defined Chucks as the first shoes to feature Mickey Mouse. Despite this high-profile launch, it wasn't until the late noughties that collaboration became a central element of the Chuck. The 2008 Converse 1HUND(RED) Artists Collection commissioned 100 global musicians, graphic designers and graffiti artists to use the Chuck as a canvas on which to express their support of the fight against AIDS, empowering the community for a cause and unleashing a dam of creativity. The stream of joint creations has remained steady, including signature contributions from the brand's longest-standing collaborator, Comme des Garçons (CDG) PLAY.

Converse's 1934 partnership with Disney defined the Chuck as the first shoe to feature Mickey Mouse.

By 1977, Chuck Taylor All Stars were available in a spectrum of colours—as this athletic footwear catalogue reveals.

Replicas of Andy Warhol's Chucks were part of the Dover Street Market 2024 exhibition "Andy Warhol: Social Disease".

Custom chandelier featuring black Chucks. Photograph by Ryan Stifler.

In 2015, the Chuck 70 became part of the Converse x PLAY Comme des Garçons  
collaboration.

The 2024 Chuck 70 De Luxe Squared embellished the Chuck with Swarovski crystals.

The instant, persistent popularity of the Converse x PLAY Comme des Garçons partnership confirmed what had been apparent for decades: the Chuck effortlessly resides in high-fashion spheres, whose leading visionaries grew up with the shoe, influenced by its anti-conformist ethos and customisable style. As fashion designer Rick Owens put it, "When I think of Converse, I think of the black and white Chuck Taylors and the punk rock generation. These have always been iconic pillars of my aesthetic".As the noughties wore on and digital media democratised access to the fashion world, the Chuck cemented its status in this once-rarefied yet open-minded world. It graced runways in both original and bespoke forms at the same time as it populated the pages of glossies and appeared in street-style snaps from global fashion weeks.

In 2021, Rick Owens reimagined the Chuck 70 as the TURBODRK Chuck 70. Photo by OWENSCORP.

Marc Jacobs outfitted models in Chucks for his iconic 1992 Perry Ellis "Grunge" collection.

Lila Moss in Converse x Isabel Marant Chuck 70 Ox sneakers, part of a collaborative 2025 collection.

The 2012 Converse Made in Maine boot reimagined the Chuck, nodding to its rich American heritage.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander sporting Chucks in a 2025 NBA Tunnel Walk.

The Converse x Feng Chen Wang 2-in-1 Chuck 70, inspired by the designer's Chinese heritage.

Deeply entwined in the fabric of global culture, the Chuck has likewise witnessed a myriad of historical moments, adorned the feet of diverse history-makers and embedded itself into the greater societal landscape.

At the Soweto Township in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2015, a traditional Zulu dancer performs in Chucks.

An ad from the Converse 1990 All You Need campaign placed Chucks on the Berlin Wall.

In Beyoğlu, Turkey, Chucks are carefully preserved in a pickle jar. Photo by Aytekin Gezici.

Converse's ongoing support of self-expression was on display at the 2024 Boston Pride Parade.

Chucks at The Town Festival in São Paulo, Brazil, in 2023. Photo by Cauê Paciornik.

As its endless iterations prove, the Chuck could likely claim the title of the most customised sneaker in history. It has been splatter-painted and Sharpied; adorned with badges, pins and spikes; embroidered and cross-stitched; inverted. Like a fingerprint, each expression reflects its creator's unique creativity. As confirmed by Converse All Star Rocco Montagnoli Bruzzone. "Chucks have helped me express myself and my individuality since I was a child, when I used to sketch on them. Now, I wear a clean pair of Chucks to my meetings".

Recognising the powerful relationship a one-of-a-kind Chuck fosters with its wearer, the brand introduced limited-edition offerings&nbsp;as far back as 1988, via mail-order catalogue. Next came hyper-local Chuck collections, such as Lunar New Year and City Packs. Often made in collaboration with local creators, these city-exclusive designs weave the distinct cultural weft of their locale into the Chuck's signature form. In 2015, Converse further evolved its personalisation platform with the introduction of Converse By You, a digital design programme that reached new heights with the record-breaking 2024 Converse By You x Billie Eilish collaboration—all in an effort to bring creators closer to their Chucks.

And that's just the first century.

The shoe's journey from afterthought to global icon defies convention, which begins to explain why the Converse Chuck Taylor All Star has served as a talisman of self-expression for multiple generations, subcultures and genres: It has never tried to fit in.

Journey of an icon: the history of the Chuck Taylor All Star

Words: <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="/company/people/davis-jones-senior-editor" target="_blank" class="ql-size-small">Davis Jones</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>

A <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/faith-kipyegon-wins-gold" target="null">legendary runner</a>. A <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/breaking4-faith-kipyegon-vs-the-four-minute-mile" target="null">legendary goal</a>. Faith Kipyegon is one of the most accomplished middle-distance runners in history. To push herself beyond simply earning more gold hardware, she set her sights on breaking a barrier thought to be indomitable—running a sub-4-minute mile. To match that goal, Nike is bringing its full power of sports science research and design expertise to create the integrated made-for-speed products to help get her there: a first-of-its kind speed suit, a sports bra made of a revolutionary 3D-printed performance material and a featherweight spike that turns the dial on innovative features up to 11.

The Nike team knows that performance in the mile is decided by the sum of many fractional decisions. The choice to hug the inside rail or float to the outside. Sprinting a breakneck pace at the start or hanging back to assess the field. Designing for an audacious attempt like Breaking4 is similar. Functionally, all of the Nike products need to combine, piece by piece, to help Kipyegon—the women’s current world record holder in the mile at 4:07.64—shave off the 7.65 seconds she needs to meet her goal.“The integrative nature of this kit means everything with this attempt”, says Brett Kirby, principal researcher in the Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL). “Not any one thing will help her break it”.Here, Nike researchers and scientists unpack the power of the three Breaking4 innovations.

The Nike Fly Suit

The Nike designers’ mission for Kipyegon’s kit: Create the most aerodynamic speed suit in running history. Nike’s contributions to running aerodynamics through apparel spans historical scenes both memorable (Cathy Freeman’s bodysuit in Sydney) and more subtle (Eliud Kipchoge’s half tights in Breaking2). The gains to be made are huge; aerodynamics is a critical factor in Kipyegon’s attempt. At full sprint, she’ll be running 15 miles per hour. As the air hits her body, she’ll be pulled back as the air whips around her, building pockets of air, or eddies, behind her.

To fight these forces, enter the Nike Fly Suit, a one-piece apparel solution with a complementary headband and arm and leg sleeves featuring sleek, stretchy materials designed to help Kipyegon stay “slippery” to move through the air as efficiently as possible. The material used on the headband, arm sleeves and leg sleeves is lighter than that on the suit, which covers Kipyegon from below the neck to about the knee. As apparel gets further away from the body’s centre of gravity, keeping it lightweight becomes even more important to help Kipyegon conserve her energy. Plus, aerodynamic materials perform differently depending on their location across the body.

Nike’s star innovation feature in mitigating air forces are the Nike Aeronodes. These half spheres vary in size; some are smaller than a pencil tip. The Aeronodes are strategically placed on the suit to accomplish two goals: split the air in front of Kipyegon and create smaller eddies behind her to reduce drag.

Put another way, the job of the Aeronodes is to keep the wind “attached” to Kipyegon, or streamlined to her body, says Lisa Gibson, senior project manager for apparel innovation. Without them, the wind whipping behind Kipyegon gets “noisy and nasty”. Picture a rock in the middle of a rushing river, water wrapping tightly around the rock’s mass. Now, imagine if the wake of the current behind the rock wasn’t pulled back in but instead radiated further and further away from the rock, those swirling eddies increasing in intensity. That’s what happens when running at Faith’s speed in a typical suit. The Nike Fly Suit’s Aeronodes help the wind act like that rushing water around the rock, pulling the air tighter against her body and creating the smaller eddies behind her.Adding elements to make the suit faster might seem counterintuitive. But the project’s goal—to combine incremental product changes to give Kipyegon the best chance of breaking 4 minutes—required Nike scientists and researchers to suspend preconceived notions.“On our innovation team, we always start by challenging any assumptions we have about athlete performance”, says Gibson. “We know our legacy with footwear design and the importance of the spike in cutting down runner times. But when we continued to explore the advantage we could gain from the apparel Faith wears—a conversation that we helped lead with Eliud Kipchoge and Breaking2—it became clear how much faster Faith could potentially run if the suit had certain physical features beyond the slickness of its material”.

The proof was in the testing, beginning with a digital wind simulation. Here, the team interrogated every detail of how the Aeronodes showed up—each one’s circumference, height, the spacing between them. Digital simulations allowed the team to test a range of configurations in a short amount of time without needing to create physical nodes on the suit. As the configurations looked more promising, the testing moved into a wind tunnel, then onto the track, then, finally and most importantly, to Kenya for Kipyegon to try herself.“We could say that a product feature might help make Faith faster”, says Amy Jones Vaterlaus, VP innovation, NSRL. “But if that product feature doesn’t match how Faith likes to feel, move and show up, then we’re not doing our jobs. The balance between the benefits of the speed suit and its familiarity for Faith was crucial”.

The Nike FlyWeb Bra

For enhancing sports performance, a typical sports bra has its drawbacks: It can hold more moisture to the body compared with other articles of clothing. The “thermal burden” associated with a normal sports bra can also be ruinous, even for an event as short as a mile. These considerations struck the Breaking4 design team, along with the fact that Kipyegon’s Fly Suit material was made to be as sleek as possible. It was critical that a sports bra not add another unnecessary heat source.For the attempt, Kipyegon will wear a new, one-of-one bra made of Nike FlyWeb, a 3D-printed TPU material optimised for moisture management, better than any typical textile. The bra’s racerback style provides more range of motion, and the computationally designed form features a dynamic, precision-tuned surface that’s denser in some places for higher support.

“This 3D-printed material innovation represents something entirely new on a visual and visceral level”, says Janett Nichol, VP, Nike apparel innovation. “Sports bras have never looked or felt like this before. The material is soft, light and incredibly supportive—yet it also feels like you’re not wearing anything at all. We know Faith’s bringing everything she has to achieve this goal, so we knew Nike FlyWeb had to be part of our contribution”.

The Nike Victory Elite FK

Last summer in Paris, Nike designers were already evaluating Kipyegon’s go-to spikes for her future mile attempt. The footwear behind Kipyegon’s hat-trick 1,500-metre gold in 2024 and her mile world record in 2023 is the Nike Victory 2. For Breaking4, Nike designers knew that whatever shoe she wore needed to be packed with the latest technology and engender trust in the way her Victory 2 spike has throughout her career.

The footwear team explored dozens of options, the models ranging from subtly different to net new. Kipyegon’s preferences guided the final verdict. The&nbsp;team levelled up a new silhouette made to Kipyegon’s specifications—the Nike Victory Elite FK—that is light, propulsive and, most importantly, fast.

“Track spikes are incredibly important for preserving energy while running”, says Carrie Dimoff, footwear product director, Nike innovation. “The suit addresses the energy demand to run through air. Faith’s spike features completely new components designed to increase her energy return and improve&nbsp;her running&nbsp;efficiency. The spike is also significantly lighter than anything she’s worn before.&nbsp;We’re storied in our spike design history at Nike, and still we’ve pushed even further into the future with Faith’s Victory Elite FK spike”.

Kipyegon’s Nike Victory Elite FK spike has several distinct benefits. First, the Air underfoot. Nike’s peerless middle-distance research suggested that a taller Air Zoom unit would help improve runner efficiency across greater distances. Despite the taller Air Zoom, Kipyegon’s custom spike was engineered to have a slightly increased heel-to-toe offset compared with the Victory 2.

Second is the customised spikes, an experiment in shedding weight while optimising traction for Kipyegon. The shoe’s outsole plate features six titanium spikes for better traction at toe-off, compared with five on the Victory 2 and on early prototypes that Kipyegon tested, pictured here.

The titanium spikes are lighter than steel and stronger than aluminium, which are the primary metals used in traditional spikes. The six spikes are also embedded, not screwed, in carbon fibre layers on the plate, creating a more seamless integration underfoot, seen here, in Kipyegon's final spike, which features a graphic with the goddess of victory.

The Victory Elite FK upper is far lighter than the Victory 2. The bespoke Flyknit upper helps reduce the weight of the upper panel by some 60 percent—or about the weight of four 2p coins—while the strength of the yarns still properly contain the foot.

Designers listened to every feedback detail from Kipyegon to create this personalised shoe (for example, she prefers a wider fit in the forefoot, which the team adjusted). The result is a spike made to make history.

The athlete

Of course, the most important component in Breaking4 isn’t futuristic apparel or a cutting-edge spike, but Kipyegon herself. The Nike products are designed in service of her; they’re boundary-breaking because of her. And their every consideration—of which there were hundreds, thousands—had to bring Kipyegon an unrivalled confidence in her movement, her body and her preparedness to take on the record of a lifetime.“One of Faith’s unique qualities as an athlete is to bring out a spirit of connection among individuals, who all come together to achieve new heights”, says Kirby. “Through the camaraderie she brings, we all achieve something greater than what we could do alone. When she suits up for this attempt, we’ll all be there alongside her”.

See how Nike innovators created a one-of-one suit, bra and track spike to help the world champion become the first woman to break the 4-minute mile.

Behind the design of Faith Kipyegon's Breaking4 speed kit

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/zach-doleac-contributing-photographer" target="_blank" class="ql-size-small">Zach Doleac</a> A massive team of Nike innovators, scientists, designers and dreamers have been working tirelessly behind the scenes and pouring in everything they have to make the impossible possible for Breaking4—Faith Kipyegon’s audacious attempt to shatter the 4-minute mile. They’ve chased new ideas. They’ve navigated doubt. They’ve trusted their instincts and each other.We sat down with six of the lead dream-makers—across footwear, apparel, innovation and sports marketing—to get an exclusive look inside the passion, breakthroughs and belief that’s powering one of the boldest pursuits in sporting history.

CARRIE DIMOFF Senior Manager, Program Management, Innovation Footwear Breaking4: Footwear Lead A former US Olympic Trials marathoner, Carrie Dimoff knows what it means to compete at the highest level. Now leading footwear innovation for Nike’s fastest athletes, Dimoff brings that sharp dual lens to Breaking4, overseeing the design and development of Kipyegon’s race-day spike. Dimoff helped drive the vision for Kipyegon’s ideal spike from concept to execution, pushing bold ideas, navigating rapid turnarounds and keeping every decision laser-focused on one thing: making Kipyegon faster.From the moment Faith broke the world record in Monaco, there was this incredible energy—this sense that something bigger was beginning. I’ll never forget the feeling in the stadium. It was electric. Everyone was amazed but already starting to wonder: could this be the beginning of the sub-4-minute mile for women?When I heard that Faith was going to go for it and that we were going to support her, I just thought, Yes, let’s go. Faith inspires the global community of women not just with her speed but with the way she carries herself. You could see it even in Monaco, the way her competitors rallied around her. She’s someone everyone can get behind.This project felt different from the start. The integration across Nike with footwear, apparel, science, pacing—it’s been a true all-in effort.&nbsp;As we considered her footwear, we kept asking, is this better than what she already has? Is it faster? Is it more confident? If it wasn’t, we scrapped it.&nbsp;Faith’s boldness makes us bolder too. She’s pushing the edge of human performance and, in doing that, she has challenged us to push past old limits too.If she crosses the line in under 4 minutes, it won’t just be a new world record. It’ll be a new understanding of what’s possible for women in sport.

BRETT KIRBY Principal, Scientist-Applied Performance Innovation Breaking4: Performance Integration LeadBrett Kirby has spent his career turning gutsy goals into executable plans. As a leader behind Breaking2—the Nike-backed project that helped fuel Eliud Kipchoge to run a sub-2-hour marathon—he’s no stranger to moonshots. For Breaking4, Kirby has helped steer the science and systems thinking that underpin the entire effort, bridging data, testing and design to help Kipyegon gain every possible edge—and make history.When I first heard about Faith trying to break the 4-minute mile, I honestly paused. I thought, Wait, what? This doesn’t seem possible. It felt so far away from anything we thought was achievable. But then I stopped and thought about who we were talking about: Faith Kipyegon. And suddenly, it shifted. This was the right moment, the right athlete. It was easy to get excited.From there, it became about commitment. One thing I’ve learned over and over, especially from projects like Breaking2, is that when you commit to something big, creativity starts to flow. Once you draw that line in the sand, you move differently. You stretch into new ideas, you collaborate more deeply, you make the impossible feel within reach.This project didn’t come with a road map, and that’s actually what made it great. This whole effort thrives because there was no script. I love the projects with question marks, the ones that leave room for discovery. Every day, it was about balancing what we could learn with what we had to deliver. Finding the art between exploration and execution.Faith’s drive pulled all of us higher. Watching how seriously she respected the magnitude of this goal made us want to show up better too. I found myself pushing harder, thinking differently, reaching further. It became a collective effort to match the bar she was setting.When I picture her stepping onto that track in Paris, I just hope she feels light. At ease. Like the moment is hers and her body and mind are in perfect harmony.If she breaks that barrier, it won’t just belong to her. It’ll belong to everyone who is dreaming bigger because they saw it happen.

JANETT NICHOL Vice President of Innovation Breaking4: Nike FlyWeb LeadWhen Janett Nichol got the call about Breaking4, she saw a powerful opportunity to help shape a historic moment through design and innovation. A seasoned leader in Nike Innovation with experience supporting intrepid goals like Eliud Kipchoge’s sub-2-hour marathon, Nichol knew the playbook for moonshot moments didn’t exist. But she also knew what it took to build one from scratch. Her team dived headfirst into crafting a race-day system for Kipyegon, strategising a full-body solution down to the smallest detail—and including a bra made from Nike’s newest material innovation.We had to build something game-changing, and every second counted. I knew we’d need to move at a speed that rivalled Faith’s own. So we asked ourselves, What do we have in our arsenal that could serve her? How can we make it better—fast?One of those innovations was Nike FlyWeb. We’d been developing it, but this was the first time it would be tested on the world stage, and by using it to create a one-of-one bra. Faith gave us a rare opportunity: She would not only wear it, she’d help us evolve it. Her feedback became fuel. We obsessed everything from sweat absorption to engineered breathability to lightness to support. It needed to feel like a second skin and still deliver on every demand of elite performance.Every improvement she inspired will ripple forwards into future designs, not just for her but for every woman who trains, competes and dreams. That’s the power of a breakthrough material like this.Faith trusts us, and we take that responsibility seriously. Debuting Nike FlyWeb was about more than making a bra more functional. It had to be beautiful. Emotive. A visual representation of strength and grace.&nbsp;Paris will be Faith’s moment. We don’t get to cross the finish line with her. But I’ll be feeling every stride, knowing our team gave everything to help her get there. It’s been the honour of a lifetime.

AMY JONES VATERLAUS VP, Women’s Research, Nike Sport Research Lab Breaking4: Innovation LeadWith a background in applied robotics and two decades of experience driving innovation at the meeting point of science and sport, Amy Jones Vaterlaus thrives in high-stakes, no-road-map challenges. For Breaking4, she’s played a central unifying role, aligning teams across apparel, footwear and performance science as priorities shift and insights emerge. Whether pivoting strategy or rethinking assumptions, Vaterlaus has helped the team stay nimble, all in service of building a cohesive system designed to give Kipyegon every possible edge.Some projects push your thinking. Some stay with you long after they’re over. From the moment I joined this one, I knew it would be both.Faith’s dream wasn’t just about one race or one goal. It was about pushing the boundaries of what’s possible—for herself, for women in sport, for anyone chasing something bigger than themselves. That’s the kind of energy that pulls you in completely.When I first heard about Breaking4, I didn’t hesitate for a second. My immediate reaction was, We’re in. What do we need to do? I recognised straight away how significant, as well as how challenging, it would be. But I also knew this was exactly the kind of audacious innovation challenge Nike was made for. And this is what I personally love to do.My role was to conduct—to bring together all these brilliant, specialised minds across footwear, apparel, performance science and more. Not just to organise them, but to help make the sum greater than the parts. Stay flexible. Stay agile. Make sure we were honest about what was working and what wasn’t—and willing to pivot when we needed to.We had to pivot a lot. Pacing started as the big lever, and then apparel took on an even bigger role. That level of change challenged me as a leader. Learning to pause, reassess and sometimes change direction when everything in you wants to keep charging forwards.Faith’s courage pushed me to think about my own edges too. Am I using my voice enough? Am I pushing beyond this one moment? This isn’t just a project. It’s a legacy. It’s part of a larger movement to close gaps in women’s performance knowledge and change what’s possible in sport.When Faith steps onto that track, I hope she feels it all—the pride, the love, the full force of a global community standing behind her. And I know I’ll be somewhere nearby, probably crying, feeling honoured just to have been part of it.

As Kipyegon’s long-time Nike sports marketing rep and close friend, Simon Bairu has had a front-row seat to nearly every milestone of Kipyegon’s professional journey. A former professional distance runner himself, Bairu knows exactly how rare an athlete like Kipyegon is, and he’s seen first-hand how powerful her presence can be. From supporting her day to day, to championing her biggest ambitions, his role is part logistics, part advocacy—and all heart.When Faith first decided to go after the sub-4-minute mile, I wasn’t surprised.&nbsp;That’s just who she is. She doesn’t tiptoe towards greatness, she runs straight at it. She had already told us this would be her final year focusing on the 1,500, and she wanted to leave a mark. Not just for herself but for every woman chasing something that’s never been done.This is one of those bold, uncertain projects that excites you because you know it’s going to mean something far beyond sport.&nbsp;The moment she said she wanted to try, everyone at Nike came together and asked, How do we help get her there? That’s what we do at our best.I’ve watched how hard she works, how much she sacrifices, how deeply she cares.&nbsp;It pushes me to be better too. My job is to meet her where she is and then help her get where she wants to go. That’s what this role is really about. Supporting her in the big moments, sure, but also in all the little ones that nobody sees.Faith is a fierce competitor, but she also has a sharp, witty side that not everybody gets to see.&nbsp;When she lets her guard down, there’s an ease and playfulness that comes through. I feel lucky to be one of the people she shares that with.In Paris, the gear will be perfect, the science will be in place—but I’ll just be thinking about how proud I am.&nbsp;I first saw her race in Rio when she won gold, and now she’s here, a champion, a mother, a leader and an ambassador who’s redefining what women are capable of. That moment will belong to her, no matter what the clock says.When she breaks 4, she won’t just set a record.&nbsp;She’ll change what every girl watching thinks is possible. I don’t think she can do it—I know she will.

LISA GIBSON Senior Product Manager, Innovation Breaking4: Apparel LeadA former Olympic water polo player for Great Britain, Lisa Gibson knows what elite competition demands both physically and mentally. Now leading apparel innovation at Nike, she brought that athlete’s mindset to Breaking4, guiding the creation of Kipyegon’s race-day speed suit. From early prototyping to final design, Gibson focused on performance, comfort and freedom of movement, building trust athlete to athlete.When I first heard about Breaking4, my reaction was awe and inspiration. What an incredible endeavour, a chance to truly change the game for women’s sport. Whether Faith breaks the 4-minute mile or not, her bravery to even attempt it is monumental. Dream big. Don’t let fear hold you back. That’s what she’s showing the world—and that’s what we wanted to stand behind.My role wasn’t about being the expert in materials or design. It was about making sure we moved together as one team towards a common vision: to support Faith in every way possible. We grounded ourselves in her voice from day one. It’s not just about creating performance innovation. It’s about listening. Making sure Faith knew: We hear you. We’re building for you.We obsessed every detail. Every graphic, every material choice, every seam was pushed and tested. If something felt even slightly restrictive to her, like a high neckline, we scrapped it immediately. We had to create something that moved in complete synergy with her body. Freedom of movement became our North Star. Form had to follow function, and Faith’s comfort had to lead everything.Breaking assumptions became our daily work. We challenged ourselves constantly: What if apparel, not footwear, could be the game-changer? How far could we push aerodynamics without sacrificing how Faith felt when she raced? When you bring that many brilliant minds together—scientists, designers, engineers—and you stay united in purpose, that’s where the real magic happens.I want Faith to feel unstoppable—powerful, confident, ready. I hope she feels how much heart, energy and belief we’ve poured into this for her. She’s already changed sport forever. Now it’s time to show the world.

We sat down with the Nike leads across footwear, apparel, innovation and sports marketing to get an exclusive look inside one of the boldest pursuits in sporting history.

Meet the dream team behind Faith Kipyegon's Breaking4 attempt

Erin Wallace rounded the 600-metre mark on the back stretch in Xiamen, China, holding on for dear life. In her periphery, she eyed the blinking blue light at her feet that was attempting to leave her behind.Erin was one of two runners who were pacing <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/stories/faith-kipyegon-profile" target="_blank">world champion Faith Kipyegon</a> for the 1,000 metres in April's Diamond League meet. Pacers, or rabbits, ensure that at least one runner in the field keeps the right pace to break a certain time, usually a record. In this case, Faith was looking to break 2:28.98 in the 1,000 metres, a world record that's stood for 27 years.&nbsp;Erin is familiar with laying down a pinpoint pace. In London in 2024, the 24-year-old Scottish athlete paced the 800 metres for fellow national team runner and <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/keely-hodgkinson-wins-gold" target="_blank">Nike athlete Keely Hodgkinson</a>. Peeling off the track after 500 metres, she watched Keely soar around the second lap and break the British national record with a time of 1:54.61.&nbsp;Physically, pacing and racing are interrelated. But mentally, they do have their differences.

<h3>At the gun </h3>An in-between middle distance like the 1,000 metres in Xiamen shows the skilful precision behind every good pacer. Erin's coach, Trevor Painter, suggested she start the race conservatively. The gun sounds; the race begins. In starting as the third runner from the furthest outside lane, she needed to pull ahead of the pack for the first 50 metres. But at the 200-metre mark, she ran 29.4, a shade over the race pace of 28.8. She needed to pick things up. Fast enough? Too fast? Too slow? The internal dialogue rages in a pacer's mind. By the time she rounded the first 400 metres, she clocked a 59.38, nearly even with the blinking light around the track's interior—a light acting as a digital rabbit."In Diamond League meets, you have clocks stationed at every 100-metre mark. But you still need to have an internal physical sense of when to pick things up", says Erin. "Just because you can run a fast time doesn't necessarily mean you can regulate your speed for someone else's time".

<h3>During the race</h3>There's a time on the clock, and there's the clock ticking away in your body,&nbsp;raising the alarm to slow down or speed up. Erin mentions how pacing at different distances can require various levels of awareness. At shorter distances, you're going at a sprint, relying more on the light. Your athletic threshold is the barometer. A longer distance, however, can leave more room for strategic error."You learn to notice both your body and your environment at a high intensity when you're a pacer", says Erin. "You notice your position relative to the field. You notice where the timers are placed in the stadium. You especially notice anything that can disrupt the race, like how your exit impacts the other runners".

<h3>Going for the exit</h3>The final 400 metres, where many pacers will exit as the other runners take the bell lap, can be loaded with potential tripping hazards: the inside rail, the clock, electronic scoreboard equipment. In Erin's case during the Xiamen race, she looked down the last 20 metres of the 600-metre home stretch and realised that things were "looking a little busy down there", referring to a banner advertisement on the ground preventing an easy exit. She'd need to either hurdle it or find an opening about 2 metres past the finishing line and quickly veer off.&nbsp;She managed to find a gap in front of the banner. She shot for the exit and made it—barely.&nbsp;"When you peel off the track", she says, "you want the runner following you to have every detail lined up for them".&nbsp;That was true for Faith, who handily won the 1,000 metres, though narrowly missed beating the world record. She'll take those learnings to her next challenge: <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/breaking4-faith-kipyegon-vs-the-four-minute-mile" target="_blank">attempting to break the 4-minute mile in Paris on 26 June</a>.Erin's perspective on Faith's daring: "It's crazy", she says. "When you're running up close with her, like I have this season, you're able to appreciate just how talented she is". Erin adds that she's honoured to play a part in the Breaking4 arc. "Pacing gives you a chance to be part of another runner's story", she says. "Knowing that I can play a role in her path to beat that time is inspiring".

Middle-distance runner Erin Wallace, who paces champions like Faith Kipyegon, breaks down the tactics to help racers hold a pinpoint time.

Fan hub

How a professional runner helps pace for record times

In 1973, two years after the Nike brand was born and the first Swoosh adorned shoes, the nascent footwear company signed its first star runner. The phenomenal Oregon native held multiple American distance records, competed on athletics' greatest stage in Munich in 1972 and appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated as "America's Distance Prodigy". The prodigy was Steve Prefontaine, America's best-known athlete at age 22. He possessed warrior determination and ran each race as if his life depended on it. His competitive fire, gutsy race tactics and inherent charisma charmed crowds and inspired up-and-coming runners to stick with the sport and give it their all.&nbsp;

On track for greatness

At 15, competing for Marshfield High School in Coos Bay, Oregon, Prefontaine set his first national record, running the 2-mile event in 8:41.5. He won back-to-back state cross-country championships in 1968–1969, and went undefeated in cross-country and athletics in his junior and senior years. Heavily recruited by top running schools during his senior year, Prefontaine was swayed by a handwritten note from University of Oregon head coach Bill Bowerman. "It said if I came to Oregon, he'd make me into the best distance runner ever", Prefontaine recalled. "That was all I needed to hear".

While training under Bowerman and assistant coach Bill Dellinger at Oregon beginning in 1969, Prefontaine won seven NCAA titles (three in cross-country, 1970–71, '73; and four in the three-mile distance in athletics, 1970–73). In Pac-8 Conference athletics competition, he won three-mile titles during each of his four years at Oregon, plus the mile in 1971. At home at Hayward Field during his collegiate career and beyond, he notched a remarkable 35 out of 38 victories between 1970 and 1975.&nbsp;

Prefontaine's ascendancy came at a time when running was far from mainstream. Drivers unwilling to share the road routinely yelled and threw rubbish at runners as they sped past. Prefontaine helped changed that attitude from annoyance to admiration. On the strength of his indisputable achievement and winning personality, he was the first person to make running cool. His association with Nike helped establish the Swoosh as a trusted running brand and transform the company from national shoe distributor to worldwide brand.

As a competitor at the University of Oregon, Prefontaine had considerable exposure to Blue Ribbon Sports and Nike footwear (at the time, products were branded Nike but the company name was still the original Blue Ribbon Sports, or BRS). In the summer of 1973, Nike co-founders Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman extended a $5,000 yearly stipend to help offset Prefontaine's training expenses and to relieve him of occasional bartending shifts at the popular Paddock tavern. In between athletics workouts and long runs along the McKenzie River, Prefontaine put in time at the BRS shop in Eugene. Prefontaine became well versed in BRS and its products and he was an ace pitchman. He printed up business cards with the title National Director of Public Affairs, and began travelling around the Pacific Northwest sharing training tips and encouragement to athletes while introducing them to new Nike running shoes.&nbsp;

Prefontaine's competitive fire, gutsy race tactics and inherent charisma charmed crowds and inspired up-and-coming runners to stick with the sport and give it their all.

The Breaking4 journey: Faith Kipyegon and Nike's unforgettable project

10 details Nike obsessed over to support Faith Kipyegon and Breaking4

Journey of an icon: the history of the Chuck Taylor All Star

Behind the design of Faith Kipyegon's Breaking4 speed kit

Meet the dream team behind Faith Kipyegon's Breaking4 attempt

How a professional runner helps pace for record times

How Steve Prefontaine set the pace for Nike

The women creating a new running culture in India

In conversation: marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge and athletics star Faith Kipyegon

Faith Kipyegon is ready to make history

Charging forwards: 4 Nike athletes on resilience, roots and persistence

Luka Dončić is more than just one of the best players in the league