Nike unveils its fastest carbon-plated racer: The Vaporfly 4

On Tuesday, American sportswear giant Nike announced the release of its highly anticipated Vaporfly 4, the next evolution in its innovative carbon-plated racing shoe series. Dropping on March 1, the brand says the latest iteration is the lightest, fastest and most responsive Vaporfly to date—designed to push personal bests further.

It’s been eight years since the first iteration of the shoe (the Nike Vaporfly 4%) made headlines and broke records in 2017. Since then, the previous three models have dominated the roads from the mile to the marathon, setting hundreds of national records. The brand says they designed the Vaporfly 4 to build on the legacy, fine-tuned for runners of all levels with insights from elite athletes like Olympic 10,000m champion Uganda’s  Joshua Cheptegei and Canadian distance running star Moh Ahmed.

Both athletes played a key role in testing the Vaporfly 4 throughout its development. “Nike nailed it,” said Ahmed. “This is the ideal Vaporfly—it’s lighter, more responsive, and has the perfect combination of carbon and foam.”

At first glance, the Vaporfly 4 looks more like the Alphafly 3 than its predecessor, but the changes from the previous iteration to the Vaporfly 4 are substantial. The shoe is roughly 10 percent lighter than the Vaporfly 3, and 20 grams lighter than the original Vaporfly, making this the lightest-ever version of the shoe, at 169 grams for a U.S. men’s 9.

Another change to the shoe is its stack height. Past models of the Vaporfly set the 40 mm standard (the legal racing limit set by World Athletics and common in carbon-racing shoes), but the Vaporfly 4 stands only 35 mm tall at the heel and 29 mm at the forefoot, for a 6 mm drop. Despite the foam reductions, the brand says the ultra-light ZoomX foam with an updated full-length Flyplate curvature still makes the shoe feel like the bounciest iteration yet.

The Vaporfly 4 is versatile and built for all runners looking to reach their personal bests from the 5K to the marathon. The Nike Vaporfly 4 will hit select retailers and Nike.com on March 1, starting at C$370. So far, only the red and white launch colourways of the Vaporfly 4 have been revealed, but additional colourways are expected to come out later in the year.