PUMA is tackling the upcoming Tokyo Olympics by equipping its athletes with shoes designed to make them accelerate even more and launch them into the speed+ dimension.
To accomplish this, he does so by designing with the F1 Mercedes AMG Petronas team the shoes of sprinters, steeplechasers and high jumpers. Why this collaboration with F1? First, because PUMA has been supplying drivers with the shoes used in racing for years, and also because the technology used in the world’s fastest single-seaters has been used in the new Olympic PUMAs: in fact, the carbon is the same as that used in the structure of the racing cars.
“It’s great that in my shoes I actually have the carbon fiber that will go into the Formula 1 cars that Lewis Hamilton races in,” said Andre de Grasse, Canadian 100m and 200m sprinter. And it is the same enthusiasm communicated by Karsten Warholm, Norwegian hurdler, world record holder, world champion and European champion: “When you sprint, you have a very short contact time with the ground, only 1 second, so you want the plate to respond very quickly. Therefore, I want the carbon to be stiff enough to get the return before it leaves the ground. This helps me run even faster.”
The result is EVOSPEED TOKYO FUTURE FASTER+, an ultra-light shoe weighing only 135 grams, with a carbon filament upper mounted on a sole made of carbon plate, designed by Mercedes AMG Petronas, with permanent titanium pins.
EVOSPEED TOKYO FUTURE FASTER+, on the other hand, is the shoe used by De Grasse to make his speed records: less dry and with some cushioning thanks to the use of NITRO foam, it weighs 199 grams.
From Formula 1 circuits to athletic tracks: PUMA is ready for new records. At the feet of its fastest-ever athletes.