It recently became clear that the controversial so-called super shoe is allowed to compete with, as long as it meets the requirements and is approved by the International Athletics Federation, World Athletics. This after pressure from active runners.

Toni Arndt, who is a professor of sports science, is involved in driving the work with this.

- We needed to produce something fairly quickly before the Tokyo Olympics, he says to SVT Sport.

The rules developed by World Athletics are based on how thick the sole is in the shoes, where the maximum allowable thickness for running branches is 40 millimeters. The sole has been debated because it is considered by many to provide strong advantages compared to other shoes. According to Toni Arndt, the rules that have now been developed are greatly simplified and need to be expanded further before the Olympics in Tokyo in the summer of 2021.

- Very simply, it's just about the thickness of the sole, but we want to arrive at which properties of the shoes can be performance-enhancing. We did not have time to go into that in the new rules. At the earliest at the end of the year, we will be able to present more research on the mechanical properties of shoes, says Toni Arndt.

CLIP: World Athletics' new rules on "super shoes" (July 29, 2020):

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