Monday marked the 127th running of the Boston Marathon, the world''s oldest annual marathon and one of the six global marathon majors. Winners in the women''s and men''s category wore On and adidas, respectively (see link). Only one of the six podium finishers wore Nike, a noticeable shift from years past when Nike dominated the circuit. This parallels market share shifts in the broader running category with Nike Running losing $1bn+ of revs (see below). Challenger brands are taking share. Nike used to dominate the podium... Nike historically has dominated the six major marathon events (Boston, New York, Chicago, London, Berlin, and Tokyo). Nike extended its lead in long distance running technology with the release of Vaporfly in 2017. Nike''s proprietary foam was so effective that Cornell University conducted a study showing that Nike''s new technology was giving runners a statistical edge in races (see link) and a prototype model of the Vaporfly that was used to run a sub-2 hour marathon was banned from competitive use (see link). Nike had a clear advantage over the field, with 31 of the 36 podium finishers in the six major marathons in 2019 wearing Nikes (see link). ... but the field is catching up Nike kicked off its latest earnings call by highlighting its heritage in running and its newly launched Invincible 3, but we believe that the field continues to catch up to Nike in running (see 3Q23 recap). The results of the Boston Marathon earlier this week further support our view. Nike had less of a presence on the podium this year, with 1 of the 6 runners wearing the brand versus 5 of 6 in 2019 (see Fig 2-3 on page 2). Impressively, adidas was worn by the top 4 male finishers and 6 of the top 10 male finishers. From the women''s group, On Running athlete Hellen Obiri won first place (finished 6th in NYC marathon), and the 6th place women''s finisher wore Chinese brand Xtep. For Xtep, this marks another milestone as the brand recently was worn...