Nike ‘Super Shoes’ sold for £500 sparks anger among runners after selling out in minutes

Nike’s latest marathon shoes sold out in minutes upon UK release

Nike’s latest running shoe sold out in minutes (Getty Images)

Nike’s flagship shoe, worn by the lateKelvin Kiptum, sold out within minutes of going on general sale.

The UK release of the Alphafly 3 was scheduled for 8am on Thursday 7 March, but most sizes were sold out almost immediately.

Nike were selling the carbon-plated shoe for £284.99, but almost immediately the sold-out shoes started appearing on resale sites such as eBay at highly inflated prices, sometimes even over £500.

Kiptum, who died in February in a road accident in Kenya, had worn a prototype of the Alphafly 3s when he became the first man to run under 2 hours and 1 minute in an official race at the Chicago Marathon in October.

The latest release was the second batch, after the first, which went on sale in January was also sold out in record time.

The Alphafly 3 is Nike’s lightest of the models released so far, with a weight of 218 grams, a heel-to-toe drop of 8mm and a stack height of 40mm at the heel.

Many people who had tried to purchase the running shoe were left aggrieved at how quickly it was sold out, any how many appeared on resale websites shortly afterwards.

Nike is not the only shoemaker to be so sought after, and Adidas had a similar situation when their Adizero Adios Pro 1s went on sale after Tigist Assefa beat the women’s world record by two minutes in the Berlin Marathon in September.

The Adidas product was especially controversial when it was reported they were only designed to last for one race, despite costing £400.

Marathon shoes have become the latest must-have for any runner competing in the longer distances, especially since the development of the carbon plate, which then led to Nike’s Vaporfly and Alphafly models.

The shoes have been controversial as the records have started to tumble in recent years, but there are limits to a shoe stack height for both track and road running that all new releases must comply with.