FT Tech Tonic Rewiring sport: How technology is helping athletes break barriers
9 snips
Jul 1, 2026 
Larissa Horton, CEO of Sumer Sports, builds AI and mobile video tools to help high-school athletes get seen. Steve Haake, sports engineering professor, explains how equipment, rules and history shape records. They discuss AI-driven recruiting, performance tech from shoes to recovery devices, and the balance between innovation and fairness in sport.
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Adidas Engineers Witness Two Hour Marathon Breakthrough
- Adidas engineers Mark Murkowski and Patrick Nava watched Sebastian Saway hit 1:59:30 in London wearing their super shoe, proving the tech could shatter the two-hour barrier.
- The shoe uses featherlight foam and carbon fibre to return energy every stride, and two Adidas athletes finished sub-two hours in that race.
Tech Is The Icing That Disturbs Performance Plateaus
- Long-term athletic gains came from population growth, nutrition and tech, with technology now acting as the 'icing on the cake' to disturb performance plateaus.
- Steve Haake shows records plateaued after the 1960s until incremental tech (like shoes and tracks) reintroduced measurable gains.
De Grasse Slowed By 1936 Shoes And Cinder Track
- Steve Haake recreated 1936 conditions: Andre de Grasse ran in replicated leather shoes on a cinder track and timed with an old stopwatch, slowing from ~10s to ~11s.
- The experiment isolated shoes, track surface and timing tech as tangible contributors to past vs modern performances.