Yesterday was MarkFu’s birthday and Val came through with a surprise gift, due to arrive tomorrow. They are the Nike Romaleos weightlifting shoe-Nike’s first shoe for this sport. If you have been watching any of the Olympic weightlifting on nbcolympics, you will see virtually every athlete wearing Adidas, which have been the de facto standard for years. By no means are they the only shoes out there. I have a pair of Do-Wins which are very good and friends of mine have shoes made by VS. Clearly, weightlifting shoes are sport specific, so you aren’t going out for a run in them, nor should you lift in running shoes either.

I am looking forward to getting the Romaleos and trying them out, but a couple things make me scratch my head at Nike’s first entry into the sport. Take a look at the video which features the shoe’s designer.

Ok, did you catch that? Has anyone seen the video of the lifter that put 1,000 pounds over his head? Then there is the part where he explains “splitting into the snatch” while showing the lifter completing a jerk from the clean and jerk. Ok, Nike, I know this is your first shoe in this sport, but you need to understand the sport and the terminology before you put this video out. Print marketing fares no better as they proclaim with this shoe you will “dominate the deadlift”. Um, no, actually you won’t. Better get a pair of Chucks for that. This isn’t nit-picking, so fix it, Nike!

Nevertheless, I am anxious to try out the shoes, which just became available to the public after only the American, Chinese and Ukrainian Olympic teams had custom versions of the Romaleos to train and compete in. At the very least, they sure look cool!

Thanks, Val!

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