How Adidas made Sabastian Sawe’s world-record-setting, 97-gram ‘supershoe’

FastCompany: When Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe crossed the finish line at the London Marathon on April 26, an Adidas attendant was waiting on the sidelines to collect his shoes. The attendant wrote Sawe’s record-breaking time, 1:59.30, on the side of the shoes, waited for him to take some photos with them, and then whisked them off to Adidas’s archives in Herzogenaurach, Germany. In that moment, the Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 became the fastest shoe in the world. Sabastian Sawe breaks the two-hour barrier and sets a record time of 1:59.30 at the 2026 London Marathon.

[Photo: Adidas] Sawe was the first person to ever run a sub-two-hour marathon in an official race, followed closely by Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha, who finished with a time of 1:59.41. Fellow Ethiopian Tigist Assefa set a women’s world record of 2:15.41. All three of these runners, who are official Adidas partners, wore the Evo 3 . Yomif Kejelcha sets the women’s record time of 2:15.41 at the 2026 London Marathon. [Photo: Adidas] The Evo 3 is the lightest, fastest race shoe Adidas has ever made. Its design is changing the game for every other athletic company on the market.

In the days since the race, awareness of the Evo 3, which Adidas first unveiled on April 23, has skyrocketed. Marc Makowski, Adidas’s SVP of innovation, says an initial limited launch of 200 pairs sold out in less than two minutes (they’re already reselling online for up to $4,000 ). Adidas expects to drop several more limited runs of the shoe in the coming months, followed by a more broadly available commercial iteration of the design around the Berlin Marathon in September.

[Photo: Adidas] But, for Adidas, the Evo 3 represents much more than its potential commercial success: It’s proof, on the world stage, that the brand is on the cutting edge of marathon running innovation. That’s a status that other brands have been doggedly competing to achieve, including Nike with its Alphafly 3 (worn by the previous all-time marathon record holder, Kelvin Kiptum), On with its LightSpray technology , and Asics with its Metaspeed Edge . “Marathon racing is, in our industry, a bit like F1 in the automotive industry,” Makowski says.

“It’s become that battleground where, as a brand, if you want to showcase your performance credibility, that’s where you do it.” It’s an intense race to design the most high-tech “supershoe” on the market—and, for now, Adidas is in the lead. [Photo: Adidas] A shoe that weighs less than a bar of soap Adidas has been developing ultra-light running shoes for more than three years as part of its Adizero Adios Pro effort. The goal, Makowski says, is to work with elite athletes to find out “what it really takes to produce the fastest running shoe.” The team’s first key insight: It would need to embrace a literal “less is more” approach.

Like in F1 racing, even the smallest design details can have a tide-turning impact on performance in elite marathon running—especially when it comes to weight. Adidas’s pro athletes told the team that they were looking for the lightest possible shoe that could still offer stability, cushioning, and traction. [Photo: Adidas] Alasdhair Willis, chief creative officer at Adidas, says that a minimalist approach is nothing new for the company’s design team: “When I came to the brand, I was working on a project called Project Silence, which was about the idea that, when you cut away the noise, the silence gets louder.

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The article highlights a significant innovation in athletic footwear that could influence brand strategies in the sports industry, making it highly relevant and impactful.