Athlete Eliud Kipchoge will be wearing the a pair of Nike trainers with 3D-printed uppers when he competes in the London Marathon this weekend.
Nike revealed the shoes, which they claim are the first running shoes in the world to have 3D-printed uppers, earlier this week at an event in London.

The uppers ? the top part of the trainer normally made from fabric ? are made form a material dubbed Flyprint, which is constructed using a process known as solid deposit modelling. Through this, plastic filament is unwound from a coil, melted and laid down in layers to form the shoe's shape.
While Adidas unveiled its 3D-printed offering in 2016, Nike claims this is the first time in the world that an upper has utilised this technology.

His main feedback was that the shoe's upper absorbed water, making his trainers heavier as he made his way around the course. Apart from that, he noted that the shoe was "perfect", so Nike set about experimenting with a 3D-upper they had been working on for over 10 years. "The process of solving expressly for Kipchoge's needs began in earnest in early 2018," said Nike. "Designers kicked off a rapid-fire prototyping phase, where they went through thousands of upper possibilities before hitting print on several variations for each prototype."

They went forward with so-called version D, but Kipchoge said the knitted upper still had its issues.
In response, the designers quickly made changes and sent the new shoes in a...