The Adidas shoe behind London Marathon’s historic sub-two-hour run

It’s not often a bit of kit drops and immediately rewrites the sport it’s built for. Usually, there’s a bedding-in period. A few quiet podiums. Maybe a record six months down the line. Not this time.

At the 2026 London Marathon, things escalated fast. Two men dipped under the two-hour barrier in the same race. The women’s field wasn’t far behind in making its own bit of history. Across all three headline performances, there was one very obvious common denominator: a brand-new, fresh-out-of-the-box Adidas racing shoe.

Enter the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3. It only launched days before the race. By Sunday afternoon, it already had a world record attached to it.

Kenya’s Sebastian Sawe led the charge, clocking an absurd 1:59:30 to take the win, pulling clear of Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha, who also snuck under two hours in 1:59:41. That alone would have been enough to dominate the headlines. Then Tigst Assefa went and won the women’s race in 2:15:41, improving on last year’s mark. All in the same shoe.

It’s ridiculously light

The headline stat is the one Adidas wants you to remember. Around 97 grams. That’s comfortably under 100g, which in running shoe terms is basically featherweight territory.

For context, most elite marathon shoes hover well above that. Dropping this much weight without sacrificing performance is the kind of marginal gain that stops being marginal over 26.2 miles.

It sounds gimmicky. Until it starts knocking chunks off world records and proving its value so quickly.

A completely new carbon setup

Previous versions leaned on carbon rods. The Evo 3 bins those off and replaces them with something called ENERGYRIM, which runs around the outside of the midsole.

The idea is simple enough. Keep the stiffness and propulsion you get from carbon, but free up more space for foam underfoot. More foam means more bounce. More bounce means less effort per stride.

The foam is doing a lot more work

Adidas has gone all-in on its next-gen Lightstrike Pro Evo foam here. It’s lighter, softer and, crucially, more responsive than what came before.

There’s a chunky 39mm stack at the heel, which is about as high as regulations allow. That gives runners maximum cushioning and energy return without tipping over into something unstable.

Adidas reckons it improves running economy by 1.6 percent. That might not sound like much, but at elite level it’s massive.

Everything else has been stripped back

When a shoe is this light, every gram matters. The upper is inspired by kitesurfing sails, which tells you everything about the vibe. Thin, strong, basically weightless.

Even the laces have been tweaked to shave off tiny amounts. The outsole only uses rubber where it absolutely needs to, mainly at the forefoot for grip. Plenty of shoes sound good on paper. This one turned up and immediately backed it up in the most public way possible.

Sawe didn’t just win. He went quicker than Eliud Kipchoge’s famous sub-two-hour run in Vienna, albeit that effort came in controlled conditions and didn’t count as an official record.

Here, there were no rotating pacers shielding the wind. Just two runners pushing each other deep into the race and holding on, breaking records in the process.

Admittedly, unless you're really into running, these £450 trainers may be overkill for a park run, but if you want to compete with the best, this is what they're wearing.

• How to sign up for the 2027 London Marathon: The ballot for next year's race is now open

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