The American sports brand has unveiled Nike Flyprint, a 3D-printed textile used in the latest version of the Nike Zoom Vaporfly Elite running shoe, out April 19 in Europe.
The latest running shoe developed by Nike will take center stage at this year's London Marathon, April 22. The firm's brand ambassador, Olympic marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge, who won gold in Rio, will pound the British capital's streets in the latest version of the Nike Vaporfly Elite running shoe, made with the brand's new 3D-printed textile called Nike Flyprint.
"Nike Flyprint uppers are produced through solid deposit modeling (SDM), a process whereby a TPU filament is unwound from a coil, melted and laid down in layers," the brand explains in a news release.
Here, 3D printing technology has been used to make a high-performance sports shoe that can be customized in relation to athlete data, "to help the world's fastest distance runners run their fastest," according to Nike.
Nike's Flyprint upper makes its debut in the Nike Zoom Vaporfly Elite Flyprint running shoe, created for the 33-year-old Kenyan athlete and driven by his feedback from the Berlin Marathon in September. The new upper improves the Vaporfly Elite shoe and makes it 11g lighter.
The Nike Zoom Vaporfly 4% running shoe, promising an average running economy of 4% -- notably thanks to a full-length curved carbon fiber plate embedded in the sole -- will also be available in Europe from April 19 via www.nike.com.