Norwegian athlete Gustav Iden is facing a shoe protest at WTCS Abu Dhabi.
Iden finished in 52nd place in the race won by Alex Yee. However, he currently faces being disqualified for a shoe violation.
At the start of this year, World Triathlon updated its rulebook to address a number of changes. One of these changes was the introduction of a frozen ranking for athletes taking maternity leave, while another was the banning of aero bars in draft legal races.
The pertinent rule change here, though, was that they brought their shoe policy in line with World Athletics. The concept was to eliminate the scope for the sport to fall into the trap of debates over “super shoes”.
The two primary aspects that are now controlled include the use of customised shoes and prototype designs as well as establishing control of the use of certain shoe designs, as is the case of World Athletics.
In essence, an athlete is not permitted to race in shoes that are not available to the general public. Moreover, athletes cannot race in shoes with a sole thicker than 40mm or that contain more than one carbon plate.
It is currently unclear which of those points Iden fell foul of.
Should he be found to have violated the shoe rules, he faces being disqualified from the race. While that will not affect his points from today to a great extent, it will create a minor problem for Iden going forward. If his shoes are not legal, he will have to find new equipment before his next international appearance.
