adidas Won 2026 Marathon Season… and It Felt Like a Side Quest
The New York City Marathon closed out the 2026 World Marathon Majors as Nike claimed a monumental first victory with their predatory Apex, crossing the finish line up front on the feet of Swedish talent Andreas Almgren. But the fight for shoe supremacy had been settled long before the starting cannon out of participants on Staten Island (as has become tradition).
Heading into the seventh and final Major, adidas had claimed eight of the 12 men’s and women’s victories and 20 of the 36 available podium spots, meaning even a perfect weekend for Nike couldn’t overturn those numbers. NYC might be the final boss of the season, but the Three Stripes clearly already had the final tally wrapped up – a dead rubber.
But the medals were only half the story. Below, we look at how Herzogenaurach made this whole running business look so easy.
The Evo 3 Effect
2026 was the year adidas produced arguably the most consequential running shoe of the modern era, then used what they learned to lift the wider Adizero range.
You know the drill with the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 by now. The thing even made TIME's Best Inventions of 2026 list! Possibly the most dissected running shoe in years, its specs have been discussed ad nauseam… but for anyone who’s somehow avoided the noise: $500, a headline-grabbing 97g, Lightstrike Pro Evo foam that’s nearly 50 per cent lighter than the previous generation’s, carbon-infused ENERGYRIM in place of a conventional plate, and an upper inspired by kitesurfing sails. (Consider yourself caught up.)
adidas had already taken four of the six medals in Tokyo before ASICS and Under Armour split the men’s and women’s victories in Boston.
Then came London.
Big Ben, Big Times
Wearing the Evo 3, Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe became the first man to officially break the two-hour barrier in the UK capital, crossing the line in 1:59:30 and surpassing the late Kelvin Kiptum’s world record by 65 seconds.
And somehow, that wasn't the only sub-two-hour performance. Making his marathon debut in the same shoe, Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha finished second in 1:59:41 – a time that would also have comfortably shattered the previous world record. (Imagine running faster than anyone in history and still finishing second!)
adidas’ female athletes were just as influential.
On the same day in London, Tigst Assefa defended her crown in the Evo 3, breaking the women-only world record in 2:15:41. She returned to Berlin in September to set a course record of 2:11:04, while Peres Jepchirchir and Hawi Feysa added wins in Sydney and Chicago, respectively.
Away from the Majors, Ethiopia’s Fotyen Tesfay had already made the case for Adizero tech, clocking 2:10:51 on her debut in Barcelona. That was the second-fastest women’s marathon in history, achieved in the older Adios Pro Evo 1 V2. adidas clearly didn’t even require everyone in the latest model to write greatness.
By the time Berlin rolled around, adidas were everywhere. All six podium finishers wore the Evo 3, while Chicago brought another men’s and women’s double – on Nike’s home turf, no less, with the Swoosh sponsoring the race since 2008.
The Trickle-Down Effect
Even if you couldn’t tell an Adios from an Alphafly, the dominance was obvious.
Anyone watching the thousands of recreational runners lining up in Berlin would have been blinded by a sea of bright red feet, courtesy of the newly launched Adizero Adios Pro 5. With Nike’s Alphafly 4 still awaiting a wider release, adidas had cannily timed their debut in the capital (as they did the Adios Pro 4 two years previously), choosing a searing ‘Solar Turbo red’ colourway practically engineered to dominate race-day photographs.
Priced at around $290, the consumer-facing racer borrows the Evo 3’s ENERGYRIM architecture, bringing its bleeding-edge technology to the recreational run club crowd.
Not that the Adios Pro 5 has been universally well received. Some runners have praised the ride, but others have reported alarming wear after relatively little mileage, with chunks of exposed midsole foam seemingly disintegrating. adidas have confirmed modifications to the outsole to address the complaints. Other testers have also described the exposed ENERGYRIM as razor-sharp, warning it can catch the opposite leg mid-stride.
Further down the range, the Adizero Evo SL has become a crossover hit, equally at home at run clubs and in everyday rotations. Sawe may have worn the Evo 3 in London, but German price comparison platform idealo reported a 50 per cent jump in demand for the SL the very next day.
The impact was immediate. The Monday after London, adidas shares climbed almost 2 per cent, while the Evo 3’s first limited release sold out within minutes.
The Evo 3 is a classic halo product. The glory it earns at the top end of the sport rubs off on everything below it, right down to the foundational Adizero models worn by yuppies on coffee runs who might indulge in the odd Zone 2 5k.
That halo comes at a cost. have reported that the Pro Evo shoes are sold at a loss, though the attention they generate is arguably the point. Pairs have been flipped for more than $5000, there was that aforementioned TIME co-sign, and Sawe’s finishing shoe, with his time written on the side, was sent to be archived at adidas’ headquarters.
Naturally, Nike aren’t giving up without a fight. Having effectively kickstarted the category with the Vaporfly, the Swoosh are preparing another major offensive with the Apex, which arrives in January 2027.
Where adidas have chased extreme weight reduction and stripped-back construction, Nike’s latest takes a more maximalist approach, packing double-stacked Air Zoom units into a brutal-looking 40mm platform.
You can’t buy it for a while yet, and that’s kind of been the story of their year: bar Brigid Kosgei’s Tokyo win in the Vaporfly 4, every podium place they’ve taken so far came in a prototype or unreleased shoe.
The Apex itself was still being fine-tuned in Kenya this summer, with Kosgei rotating through four prototype versions across 12 x 1000m reps in search of something lighter that would still grip on wet roads. Unveiled just 11 days before Chicago, it still bagged two third-place finishes, and scored the gold at NYC this past Sunday.
The Chasing Pack
It isn’t only Nike pushing back, either. John Korir won Boston in an unreleased ASICS and broke the course record, Under Armour’s Sharon Lokedi defended her title there and was runner-up in Chicago, On’s robot-sprayed Lightspray prototype got Hellen Obiri second in London, and Chinese running brand Xtep put Tebello Ramakongoana third in Sydney.
Of course, it's athletes who win marathons, not footwear companies, and sponsorship deals inevitably shape the numbers. The extraordinary performances we've witnessed this year deserve to be celebrated in their own right, regardless of the shoes involved.
For now, the bragging rights belong to the Three Stripes. But with the Apex already getting a taste for Ws ahead of its January launch, the stage is set for another showdown in 2027.
For a summary of 2026 marathon finishes, check out our up-to-date guide.