It falls to us to spend money and discover what they are on about.

Puma is flattening and Adidas is boosting. Move and countermove: now they have cornered the market in unproven bull.

However, this does not invalidate at all your other insightful comments :) I’d like to see a bouncy, not rock-solid ball (representing our body’s “spring” function) being dropped on various surfaces and how the two “springs” interact and whether the clash of two bouncy elements would send the bouncy ball higher than when it would be dropped on a hard surface.

It’s interesting that the clap skate is legal, but swimming has taken steps to ban certain types of swimsuit. I guess each sport is regulated differently?
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also notice that adidas is the only company to dramatically change midsole materials from standard EVA/similar components that have been used in the past 20 years. Cheers to at least making an attempt at innovation.

Looking at the shoe itself, I can’t help noticing that it appears to have a quite hefty heel-toe drop and that this marvelous, almost physics-defying substance is placed mostly under the heel. What use would it then present to effectively aid a naturally-running fore/mid-foot striker?

Most elastic materials provide at least some level of energy return, and most EVA mid-soles will return a proportion of the energy used up compressing them once the load is removed. If the USATF rules are literally to not allow “energy return” then almost all running shoes will need to be banned.

Is it possible that they’re about the same thickness but the slab of the boost mat is brighter and is more strongly reflected in the shiny dark surface on which it’s placed? So we fall victims of an optical illusion?