Another week, another Adidas sneaker. Only this time, the shoe in question isn’t a modern interpretation of the iconic Samba, Gazelle or ultratrendy SL 72. It’s an unsung running shoe from the late aughts, worn by Ethiopian runner Haile Gebrselassie to break the 2:04 barrier in marathon.
A brief history of the Adizero
To be clear, 2:04 is an impressive marathon time but fairly routine by today’s standards. Over 30 men have now done it on a ratified course, with the world record sitting several minutes below it.
But it was only 16 years ago that Gebrselassie became the first man in history to go sub-2:04, shaving almost 30 seconds off his own record at the Berlin Marathon in 2008.
The feat also represented another first: the debut of the Adidas’s Adizero line of running shoes, which have claimed over 150 running victories at a variety of distances, starting with Gebrselassie’s win in Berlin.
According to company lore, Gebrselassie had only tested the shoes once. He used a yellow-and-black prototype version called the Adios Neftegna to run up and down his hotel corridor the night before the race, deciding then and there that he would give them a go the following morning.
