Just last month, Abby Steiner filed a lawsuit against Puma and the Mercedes-Benz F1 team. The 26-year-old claimed the carbon-plated shoes made by the companies “seriously injured” her and “changed the foot and ankle mechanics during running that may contribute to or increase the risk of injury.” Now, as the case continues to stir debate, Steiner’s 2022 World Championships teammate and fellow U.S. Olympic medalist shared his take on this controversy.

Kenny Bednarek, signed with Nike since 2019, did not directly criticize Steiner or Puma. Instead, he said, “Everybody’s body is different. There’s not much I can really speak on that. That’s her own battle that she’s going to fight.”

Interestingly, Bednarek also wears modern carbon-plated sprint spikes such as Nike’s Air Zoom Maxfly 2. Like Puma’s “super shoes”, Nike’s spikes also uses the same carbon-fiber plate technology. Yet, Bednarek made it clear that his experience has been very different than Steiner’s. He added, “I’ve never had issues, but that’s not to say that there’s something wrong with [anyone else],” while also admitting that the shoes “do help.”

But now the question is, if elite athletes are using similar technology so what went wrong in Steiner’s case?

Well, in the lawsuit, Steiner alleges the carbon-plated and NitroFoam shoes inflicted serious foot and Achilles injuries. This eventually resulted in multiple surgeries from 2023 to 2025. She claimed the shoes affected her running mechanics and led to an abnormal amount of stress on her feet and ankles while  sprinting.

The lawsuit allegedly lists bone stress injuries, stress fractures, foot strain and inflammation, bone spurs, Haglund’s deformity, Achilles-related issues, and permanent damage to the foot and ankle that necessitated surgeries. She even named Puma products in the lawsuit, which includes the Deviate Nitro Elite 2 & 3 and the evoSPEED Tokyo Nitro sprint spikes.

So indeed, the center of the debate is carbon-plated “super shoe” technology.” Nike is widely credited with starting such a modern super shoe era after introducing the Vaporfly series in 2017. Since then, several other brands like Puma, Adidas, and ASICS, have released their own versions using carbon plates. However, this isn’t the only time the growing popularity of this technology attracted criticism and legal scrutiny.

Usain Bolt raised questions about “super shoes” years before the recent lawsuits

Back in 2021, when carbon-plated sprint spike were changing track and field, Usain Bolt openly questioned whether the technology was becoming too influential in the sport. “It’s weird and unfair for a lot of athletes because I know that in the past they [shoe companies] actually tried and the governing body said ‘No, you can’t change the spikes,’ so to know that now they are actually doing it, it’s laughable,” Bolt said.

While Bolt was focused on performance advantages, injury concerns surrounding “super shoes” began to surface some time later. In 2023, former UC Berkeley Division I runner Heather Cerney was preparing for a race in San Francisco. But when she competed wearing Nike’s Alphafly 2, Cerney complained she felt a sharp pain under her left foot shortly after.

Later, Carney was diagnosed with a sesamoid fracture. Her claims state that the injury got worse and she had to undergo surgery and a lengthy recovery period. Then, in 2025, Cerney filed a lawsuit against Nike. She claimed the Alphafly 2’s carbon plate and shoe design caused unusual stress to her forefoot. She also alleged that Nike did not give her adequate warnings of the possible dangers the shoes could pose to her.

Now, Steiner’s lawsuit has turned the conversation around carbon-plated shoes into something much bigger. For some athletes, the technology works perfectly. For others, the experience may vary.