Nike’s New Flyknit Technology Makes Running Shoes Even More Impossibly Light


Nike is showing off its latest technology for the upcoming 2012 Olympics in London, and the focus seems to be: lighter, lighter and more lighter. The highlight tech was Flyknit, a sort of yarn and fabric material that is engineered to be featherweight, formfitting and virtually seamless.

Going by the trend that Nike has been showing, I’d totally expect Nike Naked by the next Olympics. But until then, Flyknit might be the closest we get (for now). The idea for Nike was to build a marathon shoe that could offer support without weighing down a runner over the 42km. The yarn and fabric material of Flyknit is an update to Nike’s Flywire technology and seems to better mould itself onto a runner’s foot, acting more like another layer of the skin or a form fitting sock rather than a bulky shoe.

The weight difference gained by using Flyknit is tremendous: the Flyknit Racer weighs only 159g (size 9), that’s nearly 20 per cent lighter than the Nike Zoom Streak 3 (worn in the 2011 World Championships marathon by 1st, 2nd and 3rd place runners). A non-marathon version of the shoe aka the running shoe for us normal people, the Nike Flyknit Trainer+ (218g), will be released in July. [Nike Press Release, Hypebeast]