This archive report was first published on 14 October 2019.
On October 12, 2019, Eliud Kipchoge made history by becoming the first person to run a marathon in under two hours. However, not everyone was impressed with his achievement.
Some Western media outlets and social media users attempted to downplay Kipchoge's feat, crediting it to the Nike ZoomX Vaporfly shoes he wore during the INEOS 1:59 challenge.
According to Forbes, the shoes feature a carbon fiber plate in the sole and increase performance by over 4%. The UK's Telegraph described the shoes as 'a previously unseen version still in its testing phase' and 'legal doping' due to their 'carbon plate and huge foam midsole.'
Irish journalist Cathal Dennehy went as far as calling Kipchoge's record-shattering run 'technological doping', stating that the shoes are the game-changer. 'They (Nike) have the best minds in the world working on making the fastest shoes in the world. The way they do it is a bit dubious because it came out early in 2016, and the prototype was only given out to their special few,' Dennehy said.
However, Kenyans on Twitter, alias #KOT, refused to take these criticisms lying down. They jumped at the opportunity to defend Kipchoge, with many users asking Jonathan J. Marcus, who tweeted a photo of the Nike ZoomX Vaporfly with the caption 'This is what propelled a human to running a sub-2 hour marathon. Not his
