Ethiopia ran away with the 2026 Sanlam Cape Town Marathon on Sunday, sweeping both podiums and rewriting the men’s course record in the process.
Huseydin Mohamed Esa took the men’s title in 2:04:55, smashing Abdisa Tola’s 2:08:16 mark from 2024 and posting what World Athletics is calling the fastest 42km ever run on African soil. Dera Dida Yami clipped the women’s race in 2:23:18, just 56 seconds outside Glenrose Xaba’s 2024 course record.
“To win my first marathon here in Africa, on home ground, and in a course-record time makes this victory very special to me,” Esa told reporters after the race.
The day also marked the start of Eliud Kipchoge’s farewell “World Tour”. The two-time Olympic champion finished 16th in his first race on African soil.
But beyond the headlines and the splits, plenty of runners want to know what was on the feet of the six athletes who climbed the podium. Two of those shoes have never been on retail shelves. One of them costs $500. Here’s the full breakdown.
Nike Alphafly 4 Prototype
Worn by Huseydin Mohamed Esa, 1st Place Men’s — 2:04:55
Nike’s response to Adidas’s Evo project has been brewing in plain sight for months. The Alphafly 4 prototype has already shown up on the feet of Jacob Kiplimo (2:00:28 at London) and Charles Hicks (2:04:35 at Boston) this spring. Esa added a course record in Cape Town to that résumé.
Visually, the prototype is a clear departure from the Alphafly 3. The exposed Air Zoom pod in the forefoot is gone, or at least hidden somewhere inside the midsole. The midsole itself looks taller, with more foam packed under the toebox, and the upper has been trimmed down to something closer to a race-day sock. Insiders have pointed to a tweaked outsole geometry and a possible drop change down to the 4 to 6mm range, lower than the Alphafly 3’s 8mm.
Nike has not released official specs. World Athletics, however, has approved multiple developmental versions of the silhouette for competition, which is how it keeps ending up on the start line at the Marathon Majors. If you want a primer on what these shoes are actually doing under the hood, our breakdown of how super shoes actually make you faster is a good place to start.
The Deets
| Price | N/A (prototype) |
| Weight | TBC |
| Heel Stack | Estimated 40mm |
| Forefoot Stack | Estimated 34-36mm |
| Drop | Estimated 4-6mm |
ASICS Development Prototype (MZ-Type 1)
Worn by Yihunilign Adane, 2nd Place Men’s — 2:04:59; Mestawut Fikir, 2nd Place Women’s — 2:23:46; Waganesh Amare, 3rd Place Women’s — 2:23:57
This is the same hush-hush ASICS prototype that John Korir wore to win the 2025 Boston Marathon. A full year on, ASICS still hasn’t given it a real name, but it’s expected to launch around the Tokyo World Championships later this year.
Early reports point to an evolved version of ASICS’s FF Turbo+ foam, which is rumored to be both lighter and more resilient than the compound used in the Metaspeed Sky Paris. A full-length carbon plate handles the propulsion side, paired with strategic decoupling grooves in the forefoot designed to fine-tune the “roll” through toe-off. ASICS has also clearly been working on the stability complaints that dogged earlier Metaspeed iterations, which would explain why two of the Cape Town women felt comfortable enough to chase Dida home in it.
The takeaway: ASICS has now put this prototype on three different World Marathon Major-level podiums in just over a year. That is not a fluke.
The Deets
| Price | N/A (prototype) |
| Weight | Estimated 4.3 oz (Men’s Size 9) |
| Heel Stack | Estimated 39.5mm |
| Forefoot Stack | Estimated 34.5mm |
| Drop | 5mm |
Adidas Adizero Adios Pro 4
Worn by Kalipus Lomwai, 3rd Place Men’s — 2:05:06
The Adios Pro 4 is the only retail shoe in the men’s top three. It launched on December 1, 2024 and has quietly become Adidas’s workhorse super shoe for the athletes not in the Evo program.
Adidas dropped the weight by about 8% compared to the Adios Pro 3, landing it at 7.05 oz (200g) in a men’s size 9. Stack height stayed at 39mm in the heel and 33mm in the forefoot, with a 6mm drop. The big change happened inside the midsole: Lightstrike Pro has been reformulated, and RunRepeat’s lab testing clocked it at 80.4% energy return, the highest they have ever recorded in a running shoe. Reviewers have described the new foam as roughly twice as soft and twice as springy as what was in the Adios Pro 3, which is a meaningful jump for a shoe that was already quick.
Lomwai stuck with the lead group all the way to the closing kilometer, where the top three finally separated by a total of 11 seconds. At $250, the Pro 4 is also exactly half the price of the Evo, and a far more sensible buy for the rest of us. (If you’re shopping at that level, our best carbon plate running shoes of 2026 guide is the place to start.)
The Deets
| Price | $250 USD |
| Weight | 7.05 oz / 200g (Men’s Size 9) |
| Heel Stack | 39mm |
| Forefoot Stack | 33mm |
| Drop | 6mm |
Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 2
Worn by Dera Dida Yami, 1st Place Women’s — 2:23:18
The Evo 2 has been the most decorated shoe on the road racing circuit since it dropped in spring 2025, with podiums at Boston, London, and now Cape Town. Dida added the women’s Cape Town title to its trophy case on Sunday. For comparison, Adidas’s own Adios Pro Evo 3 was the shoe Sabastian Sawe wore to break the two-hour barrier in London last month, so the Evo line is having a year.
The numbers are still hard to wrap your head around. The Evo 2 weighs 138 grams (4.87 oz) in a men’s size 9, which is less than half the weight of most marathon racers from five years ago. Stack height is 39mm heel and 36mm forefoot, with the drop slashed to 3mm from the previous 6mm. Adidas got there by eliminating compression molding from its Lightstrike Pro Evo foam, which it claims gives the shoe both its weight and its responsiveness. The forefoot rocker is more aggressive than the Evo 1, and the toe spring has been pushed further forward to encourage a faster roll-off.
The catch, of course, is the price. The Evo 2 retails for $499.95 in the United States, and Adidas itself recommends runners get one or two marathons out of it before retiring the pair. It is the most extreme cost-per-mile in the sport.
The Deets
| Price | $499.95 USD |
| Weight | 4.87 oz / 138g (Men’s Size 9) |
| Heel Stack | 39mm |
| Forefoot Stack | 36mm |
| Drop | 3mm |
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